


Endless Summer

by ChrissiHR



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Bedsharing, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Clint Barton, Body Image, Body Positivity, Body Worship, Caretaking, Character Who Breastfeeds, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Complicated Relationships, Cool for the Summer Darcyland Vacation Challenge, Darcy Lewis Needs a Hug, Deaf Clint Barton, Domestic Avengers, Drama, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Roller Coaster, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Hair Braiding, Hair Brushing, Human Disaster Clint Barton, Hurt/Comfort, Kidfic, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Multi, Mutual Pining, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Other, Past Mind Control, Polyamory, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Service Top, Slow Burn, Smut, Summer Vacation, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Toddlers, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, hairwashing, mutual dumbasses, realistic depictions of PTSD, with a hint of Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-06-17 02:15:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 41,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15451164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChrissiHR/pseuds/ChrissiHR
Summary: Thanks to the Accords, the Avengers are retired. Publicly, anyway. And it’s Darcy Lewis’ new job to make sure it looks that way so no one gets curious and investigates any closer to discover things aren’t exactly what they seem. Darcy never thought she’d say it, but luxury vacations are a lot more work than they appear, especially when you’re doing twice as much in half the time as a cover story for the long gaps of world-saving in between that no one can know about—no one but Darcy and a few select Avengers family members. The legal experts in Wakanda are working on repealing the Accords, but in the meantime, the Avengers et al need a strong cover, beginning with lots of fruity drinks and sunny, shirtless pics in the tropics.This is going to be the longest summer of Darcy’s life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to my lovely betas, Zephrbabe and phoenix_173, who never really know if the thing they’re reading for me is ever going to see the light of day or if it’ll end up buried forever in my GDrive. This one made the cut! Thanks for your help, ladies!
> 
> This story was written for the FuckYeahDarcyLewis Cool for the Summer Darcyland Vacation Challenge, for the theme: 'Summer Vacations' and the prompt 'August 1: tropical island'. 
> 
> Check out the '[endless summer](https://chrissihr.tumblr.com/search/endless%20summer)' tag on my tumblr if you're interested in seeing the photos and locations that inspire this story.

All Darcy really needs is a few hundred picturesque shots of hot former Avengers in front of the bluest blue oceans and artsy, weathered greys of the overwater villas she’s booked in the Maldives for the next week. This job was supposed to be a piece of cake—an endless summer, nothing but vacations and more vacations for three months straight, and a slew of selectively chosen opportunities for photos of some pretty, pretty supers to help turn around public opinion and make the first steps toward amending or repealing the Accords.

HRH, Princess Shuri of Wakanda was very clear about her expectations and faith in Darcy’s ability to get this job done.

Shuri _lies—_ let’s just get that straight from the get-go.

Because they’re loading the jet and Darcy’s trying to herd everyone in the direction of the exceptionally well-appointed lounge area so they can get on their way already when Barnes has the bright idea to take his shirt off on the open jetway and tips his face up to soak up the last rays of Wakanda’s late afternoon sun. A perfect ray of West African sunlight glints off his sleek cyborg arm and the kind of shiny, waving locks of hair they make shampoo commercials about.

Her breath catches.

It’s just the glare, okay. She’s not choked up at the sight of all that lovely … muscle.

Really.

It’s been a while, okay? She’s suffering a bit of a dry spell.

 _Goddammit, Shuri,_ she silently curses her new boss waving their party off from the terminal. Darcy loves this job, but the thirst is real and it might kill her to keep things strictly professional if they're going to keep just ... _removing shirts_ without warning.

Before takeoff, Darcy does one last headcount to make sure everyone is where they’re supposed to be. Rogers and Barnes settle in the main salon with Romanoff, Wilson, and Wilson’s mom—Darlene. In the TV lounge, Lang is chatting with his ex, Maggie, and her new husband, Jim Paxton. On the floor, Cassie is giggling with Kate Bishop and Wanda Maximoff. Behind them, Clint perches on top of built-in cabinets holding board games and gaming consoles. He catches her and his lips twitch in that little smirk that says he sees her trying not to look, so she retreats to the executive suite at the rear of the Wakandan Golden Tribe’s jet to take care of a few last minute details.

And tries really hard to forget how good he looks in ragged, cutoff denim and a faded concert tee.

She noticed. She just really needs to pretend it has no effect on her, okay. None.

So maybe she hides in the office, takes an anxiety pill because she’s stuck on a plane with her ex, and possibly dozes off for a few hours while there’s a locked door between herself and the three-ring, super circus on the other side. Darcy regrets nothing because she knows sleep is going to be a rare commodity while staging a six-week-long social media vacation spread in just the next eight days in the Maldives. In fact, the PR prep work they’re doing this summer will be used to place the Avengers all over the world by way of alibis if and when something goes down and they’re needed, and damn the Accords.

Fortunately for everyone, the bad guys apparently either take the summer holiday seriously in the northern hemisphere or do their best evil plotting then, so there’s little Avenging to be done between May and September, historically. Even Doctor Doom needs some sunshine and margaritas from time to time, Darcy guesses.

There’s a knock on the door, eventually rousing her from her light doze. Checking herself in the mirror behind the door, she decides she only looks a little rumpled and bleary-eyed in the ‘not enough sleep’ way.

“Darce?” Another knock.

She swings the door open and finds Barton on the other side, triggering a breathless moment of deja vu—Clint coming to her cramped, little apartment in Marine Park straight from a tough mission, still covered in under armor and freshly-bandaged scrapes.

How is it possible it’s only been two years since the last time?

“Hey.” She considers leaning in the doorway, but that seems weird. Weird, right? But then it’s like she doesn’t know where to put her hands and her whole world becomes about where her hands go suddenly and she’s trying all kinds of things—crossing them under her boobs, then over (because no), one hand propped against the door frame, then, like, okay, okay, find your mojo, girl. Relax. Find some chill.

Her arms fall to her sides.

 _From chill to mannequin. Good talk, coach,_ she berates herself.

Clint’s eyebrows have climbed all the way up his forehead during her awkward little arm dance.

“This is weird, right?” she finally huffs, feeling every inch of her terrible, awkward limbs.

“Doesn’t need to be.” He leans against the wall outside the door and it looks effortlessly cool when he does it.

She hates it.

“We’re not doing this.” Darcy is sure about that one thing.

“What?”

She sort of flails. “Rekindling or whatever. No.”

Clint’s lips twist. “No?” His voice rises as if he’s waiting for her to agree, but then his lips press together and firm up. “Yeah, no.”

And it hurts a little that he agrees so readily, but ... no—this is the right decision. The adult decision.

Amazing, hot, secret sexytimes does not a relationship make. And that’s all she was to him.

She deserves better than being used like a balm to ease him back into the civilian world at the end of every mission. That’s all she was—a part of the transition from mission readiness to stood down for the mandated two weeks to clear his psych eval each time.

A way to unwind.

Besides, she’s not spending her days waiting around for him. She’s got this great job working social media for the new Wakanda PR firm that doesn’t even have a name yet. She was Shuri’s first hire, thanks to Jane’s sparkling recommendation letter, followed by a post-script written by an enthusiastic Selvig. She’s pretty sure Natasha put in a good word, too. Friends in weird places is kind of Darcy’s thing. Shuri loves it and they get along like a house on fire, thank jeebus. Because Darcy really needed this job. Really really.

“I noticed the roster has me assigned to the island villa all eight nights.” Clint purses his lips and a knife appears from thin air to pick at the underside of his fingernails. He squints and peers at her from under lowered brows with one eye. “And you’re notably assigned to the overwater villa. Is that a not so subtle reminder to keep my distance or…?”

Oh.

“No, no, no. No. _No._ ” No. She needs to be clear on this. “Captain Rogers thought—”

“Steve.”

“What?” She knows his name is _Steve_.

“Steve. He’s not a captain anymore. Pretty sure you get drummed out of the army record books when you become a wanted, renegade fugitive or whatever.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“You sure?”

“It’s my job to know, Clint. That’s what I’m here to start fixing.”

“With vacation pictures.”

“Yes,” she hisses because just talking to him makes her a little testy when he gets like this. “Anyway, _Steve_ thought you, Nat, and Barnes would feel more secure in the island villa, since the two houses are so far apart and the other one is over unsecured ocean water, obviously.”

“Can’t say I’m thrilled about splitting the team up, one on land, one on the water, but that’s solid reasoning for assigning us to the island house, yeah,” Clint reluctantly agrees, dropping his head and hands to toe at the carpet. “So the other villa?”

“Um. Me, Wanda, Lang, his extended family, and Wilson and his mom. Steve thought Barnes would be more comfortable wherever he is, so yeah. Um. I figured Kate would probably crash with you guys? But she’s welcome to stay with me if that’s a problem.”

“No problem.” Clint flips the knife through his fingers and it disappears. She’s no less amazed by his up-close magic than ever, but the shine is kind of off that apple now. She knows the circus kept food on the table and the wolf from the door when he was young, but it was a brutal, near-slavish upbringing she wouldn’t wish on anyone. Makes it harder to enjoy the magic of all his little tricks now that she knows how he came by that particular skill set.

“We gonna talk about the elephant in the room or keep ignoring it?” Clint demands and Darcy’s hackles rise despite her recent magnanimous decision to give him a chance to make up for his past mistakes.

She rolls her lips, chewing on them to buy time.

“Dinner tonight? We can talk about it then.” She holds her breath. They need to talk, but definitely not here. And definitely not in the hallway where anyone can listen in while she explains herself.

After a long, uncomfortable pause, he agrees, “Alright. Dinner’s on me, though. I owe you more than a few.”

“Clint…” she warns.

“I do. I’ll even dress like a grownup, promise.” He crosses his heart and nods solemnly just to tweak her.

With a sigh, she relents, refusing to rise to the bait. “Okay. Just dinner, though,” she reminds him with a finger in his face as Wilson, Barnes, Rogers, and Romanoff attempt to slip quietly by them in the corridor. “Because I’m never having sex with you again.”

Wilson and Barnes both cough to cover their sudden smiles and undisguised laughter, but a wide-eyed Rogers trips over his own feet, and only Romanoff’s quick reflexes prevent a super-soldier-sized, fist-shaped disaster at forty-thousand feet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe it’s unfair, but she shows up for dinner with a surprise she knows Clint isn’t expecting while the team mills around across the restaurant. (Thankfully, they're occupied deciding who’s going to sit where for dinner at the open kitchen in the hotel’s grand indoor-outdoor, hospitality villa over the water.) 
> 
> Clint looks _good_. 
> 
> He’s dressed in a summer weight suit in a cool, almost-lavender grey with a blue-grey T-shirt underneath that matches his eyes. 
> 
> He looks like Natasha dresses him these days and Darcy thinks it's probably the best decision he's ever made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *crickets*
> 
> Still with me? 
> 
> I'm just gonna carry on and hope this grows on some of you along the way. Idk. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ I've already got 6 chapters, so... 
> 
> Beta'd by Zephrbabe and phoenix_173.

Maybe it’s unfair, but she shows up for dinner with a surprise she knows Clint isn’t expecting while the team mills around across the restaurant. (Thankfully, they're occupied deciding who’s going to sit where for dinner at the open kitchen in the hotel’s grand indoor-outdoor, hospitality villa over the water.)

Clint looks _good_. 

He’s dressed in a summer weight suit in a cool, almost-lavender grey with a blue-grey T-shirt underneath that matches his eyes. 

He looks like Natasha dresses him these days and Darcy thinks it's probably the best decision he's ever made. 

“Daddy!” Darcy’s tiny, towheaded terror shouts and signs, bounding down the stairs ahead of her mommy to leap into her daddy’s arms.

“Birdie!” Clint sweeps her up with the ease and enthusiasm of someone who’s maybe not as familiar as he could be, but trying really hard to be the best dad he  _ can _ be. He’ll be covered in smudges and fingerprints in no time, but makes no effort to try to save the light-colored suit. She’s always kind of loved him for that, even if they see his child support checks with more regularity than Evie gets to see _him_.

“I didn’t know you were coming!” he exclaims, genuinely excited, trying to sign back with the baby in his arms. He turns suddenly shining eyes on Darcy. “You…” He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “Thank you,” he whispers when Darcy closes in to press a kiss to their daughter’s hair and give Clint a quick, familiar squeeze. 

“We’ll have to be careful—if she’s in any of the photos—to choose the ones that don’t show her face,” Darcy explains, “but we control what the world sees while we’re here, so I thought it would be a good time for you two to try to squeeze in a little quality time before you have to go … back to work.”

“Thanks,” he mouths when Evelyn curls up on his shoulder with her matching blonde head tucked under his chin. He pats the ruffle-covered bottom peeking from under the hem of her tiny sundress and one of her shoes nearly slips off digging into his front pocket, but Aunt Nat is there to make the save.

“Yastrebenka,” the Widow coos at her goddaughter over Clint’s shoulder, adjusting the strap so the shoe stays put. “Your shoe escapes.”

“Nuh uh,” the baby disagrees automatically with a sleepy murmur as the redhead places a tender kiss on her namesake’s head. 

Evelyn Natalie Barton loves her daddy to pieces. She took an extra nap just so she could stay up late to have dinner with him and her mommy together in the same place at the same time that night.

“She flew in with Ayo and my assistant, MJ, this morning with the photo crew,” Darcy explains when Nat gives her a look plainly asking what everyone is wondering.

“It’s late. We should eat before she passes out in her plate,” Clint points out as the others gather around in barely disguised curiosity. 

“Introductions can wait for the morning,” Nat dismisses them easily, the promise to fend off the others’ questions unspoken in their dismissal.

“Hungry, my little ladybird?” Clint gently rouses the baby from her warm, snuggly spot on his shoulder. 

“Ticken nuddets,” she says succinctly, signing ‘chicken’, followed by ‘lumps’ in her rudimentary ASL vocabulary. 

“Anything you want, baby girl,” her daddy promises, holding out a hand to Darcy. He doesn’t mean it as it seems, but her heart flutters in a way she can’t quite suppress, no matter how wrong she knows they are for each other.

Dinner is quiet in the way of children not really being quiet, but interested enough in the food to not go looking for trouble under the table instead. Evie dozes off under her daddy’s arm as he’s showing her how to sign ‘nuggets’, and it’s all of a sudden a dangerous glimpse into how good it could be between them. 

It makes Darcy nervous all over again. 

Thankfully, Kate, Nat, Barnes, and Wanda join them for dessert, and time spent with Clint is a little less intimate and terrifying for a while. Because even as much as she adores her little chick, Darcy cannot go home from this trip with another souvenir like Evelyn.

“I’ll carry her back to your place,” Clint offers when dinner ends and the team drifts off to the far corners of the hospitality center, looking for late night, grownup entertainment.

_ It’s now or never, _ she thinks. 

“I had concierge deliver an overnight bag to your villa,” she explains. “It’s probably waiting in your vestibule right now, if you’d like to take her for the night. I can come over after breakfast to pick her up before we head out to the first location shoot.”

“Darce.” His heart’s in his eyes and it’s killing her. She knows what he’s about to ask and she  _ can’t _ .

“Don’t. I can’t.  _ I won’t _ ,” she insists. Because amazing sex is not an excuse to keep making the same mistakes over and over again, expecting different results. This story always ends with her alone and in tears. With disasters or arguments, or both.

Disasters and arguments, always. 

Waking up feeling used again when his side of the bed is empty and the pillow is cold, no matter how late they’ve gone to sleep. Feeling like an afterthought, like she’s not even important enough in his life to rate a good morning kiss or taking her to the team breakfast the morning after with his friends. 

His friends who don’t even know about her. 

_ Didn’t _ , anyway.

(Except Nat. Nat knows everything.)

Sleeping under the same roof is just inviting more of the same.

She won’t be anyone’s afterthought.

“First shoot is when?” he asks.

“Nine A.M. call time, but you could…” She shouldn’t, but it’s only one shoot. “You could skip the first one and keep her ‘til after lunch tomorrow. The team is surfing and having lunch on the island at one o’clock.” They can make up for the morning session with some shots of him playing with Evie in the pool at the villa, if need be.

He walks her to her villa anyway, so Darcy packs a few more things for a longer morning—a handful of extra swim pull-ups and waterproof diaper covers, a larger bottle of tear-free sunscreen, the vanilla almond milk Evie likes sometimes with lunch, and the baby’s sturdy little water shoes, in case she wants to go down to the beach with her daddy after breakfast. 

“There are life vests her size at the island hospitality center,” she reminds him as he collects the last minute additions and returns to the front entryway to find Nat and Barnes reclining on a bench seat beside the door. Nat’s swinging a set of keys for the golf cart parked out front waiting for them.

“G’night, Darce. Thanks again for this.” Clint pats the baby’s bottom gently and leans in for a kiss. Darcy’s pleasantly surprised when his lips only graze her cheek and the breath she didn’t realize she’s been holding finally releases.

They can do this. They can co-parent the awesome little girl they made together without being idiots who only think with their interlocking lego parts. 

This’ll be good for Clint, too. He’s barely seen Evie the past six months.

Darcy can’t help but wish they had a few more days in paradise to actually relax before they need to move on to the next destination to make all their scheduled appointments and shoots. Maybe she could meet someone interesting to share her bed for a few nights that won’t end it in disaster or an argument.

Someone who’s there when she wakes up.

But this is a working vacation and Darcy has a job to do. It’s time to get the ball rolling on cleaning up their tarnished reputations before she and the lawyers can do the real work to clear their names.

Darcy’s going to do whatever it takes for her little girl to be able to visit her daddy on American soil again someday.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy ends up at the island villa before breakfast anyway because no one is answering their phone.
> 
> She needs to make sure they’re ready for their call time, so off she goes on foot, first thing. The weather is amazing in the Maldives and the walk is a lovely one without a toddler doing everything in her power to end up ass over teakettle in the ocean. Darcy loves Evie with all her heart, but her baby girl is a lot like her daddy in how easy it is for her to make trouble out of thin air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My betas are the best! Many thanks to Zephrbabe and phoenix_173 for all of their encouragement and assistance.

Darcy ends up at the island villa before breakfast anyway because no one is answering their phone.

She needs to make sure they’re ready for their call time, so off she goes on foot, first thing. The weather is amazing in the Maldives and the walk is a lovely one without a toddler doing everything in her power to end up ass over teakettle in the ocean. Darcy loves Evie with all her heart, but her baby girl is a lot like her daddy in how easy it is for her to make trouble out of thin air.

The one thing Darcy is not prepared to walk in on is the domestic scene that greets her on the island. Evie is in her tiny purple-pink swim togs with a waterproof diaper underneath, sitting between two super soldiers. The three of them are watching cartoons while Natasha sits on the floor, painting the baby’s tiny toenails a glittering Widow red. In the open kitchen to Darcy’s right, Clint’s making fruit smoothies and oversized pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse.

Kicking herself for nearly missing an opportunity, Darcy whips out her phone to snap a few pics and a short video from behind the sofa of Evie’s little pigtails bobbing between two soldiers as the three of them hum one of the baby’s favorite kids' show themes. That song’s going to be stuck in their heads all day now, suckers.

Natasha winks for the camera, then tips her head toward the kitchen, reminding Darcy to catch Clint dadding like a boss. He’s humming along to the same cartoon theme, sprinkling a combination of chocolate chips and blueberries into the pancake batter on the griddle, and Darcy can’t help but preen a little at her baby daddy for sneaking an extra serving of fruit in where Evie will least expect it.

“Kiwi-banana-coconut or pineapple-berry-mango?” he asks Darcy and the camera lens as she continues to record. She points instead of speaking and he nods, tossing chunks of pineapple and mango into the blender with a dollop of yogurt and a handful of fresh berries and ice cubes. The noise is too much for the mic on her phone, so she clicks to stop recording.

“I don’t even care if you planned it, you just earned your morning off,” she gushes happily, rounding the kitchen island to squeeze him from behind.

Clint tips back to press a kiss to her temple and whispers for her to start recording again as he hands her a smoothie and lifts a loaded tray. “Good, because me and my baby girl got big plans this morning,” Clint sings out, delivering a fresh round of fruit and chocolate pancakes, and a bowl of freshly made whipped cream on a tray to the coffee table.

“CHEZURE HUNT!” Evie pumps two tiny fists in the air.

Rogers and Barnes dive for the tray a millisecond before the baby’s foot can connect with it.

“Nat tracked down a metal detector for us this morning, so we can go sweep the beach for all the coins and jewelry the rich people people drop when they’re swimming.” Clint winks for the camera’s benefit.

“CHEZURE, MOMMY.” The baby swings around to tell her mommy all about it and Darcy clicks to stop recording again so she can give Evie her full attention. She’ll have to edit, but there’s a lot of useful footage in just that short clip for a Team Cap montage.

Darcy’s listening with amusement to the vacation version of the baby’s typical breakfast chatter. Clint interjects occasionally, explaining their plans for the morning and solemnly swearing to remember to bring one of the high quality vlogging cameras with him everywhere they go together. Out of the corner of her eye, she notices Barnes rise from the sofa to wander a few steps in the direction of the open door to the back patio.

“Ducky?” Finished with her last batch of mini Mickey pancakes and curious as ever, Evelyn watches Barnes. He pauses at the door as if suddenly remembering something and glances over his shoulder with a knowing smile. Clambering off the sofa, she dashes after him and grabs his offered hand with a happy squeal, grasping at his shiny pinky finger. His massive hand all but swallows her tiny paw in his.

“You chezure hunt wif us, too, Ducky?” She bounces on both feet, tugging at his metal arm until it recalibrates to account for the new motion required of it.

(Clint’s already beat Darcy to it, recording as Evie throws in a few 'pwease-pwease's for good measure and begs her new friend to blow off his grownup plans to play with her for the day.)

"Wouldn't miss it, kiddo," the former Howling Commando assures Darcy's baby girl.

A picture of the silhouette of tiny Evie holding the Winter Soldier’s cybernetic pinky finger gets five million likes in their first week live on Instagram.

Evie _loves_ Barnes.

He’s endlessly patient and kind, always happy to pay attention to whatever Evie is babbling at him with her sticky fingers buried in his hair or marking up his shiny arm. He’s perfectly content to play the role of her grownup safety buddy when she wants to try the waterslides and he doesn’t hesitate to fill in for Clint when her daddy is pulled away for photo shoots of his own during their trip.

Turns out, Barnes has four baby sisters whose children and grandchildren are gameday players. Every one of them comes out of the woodwork after the photo blows up on IG, showing off old family photos of a young Barnes caring for his baby sisters, nieces, and nephew in the years leading up to the war. There’s even one of him napping with his sister Becca’s only son, Little Jamie, asleep on Bucky’s bare chest at Brighton Beach under a wide, striped umbrella with the scrappiest, pre-serum Steve Darcy's ever seen at his side.

That photo somehow gets _another_ five million likes and Bucky Barnes, Baby Whisperer becomes an overnight internet meme, and Darcy’s job gets just that little bit easier with every like. She is _living_ for it.

To say nothing of the funny way Bucky cuddling babies makes Darcy’s stomach flutter and turn itself inside out.

Her ovaries need to shut the hell up.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is going great.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my beta lovelies, Zephrbabe and phoenix_173 for all their help!

Everything is going great.

Darcy’s select team of young photographers from Wakanda are loving the challenge presented to them: making the Avengers look soft and lovable to the masses; and the supers are getting a feel for what will make a good story or turn into an overnight, social media sensation. And then there’s Clint, reveling in all the time he gets to spend with Evie, insisting on taking her every night he’s in early enough to put her to bed himself.

For the first time this trip, Darcy considers how grateful she is Shuri had the presence of mind to bring in the Midtown High Scientific Exchange Students for the spring semester as part of her staff of paid social media interns with an eye towards serving as summer PAs for Wakanda University credit. Darcy picked the best and brightest of the bunch at the end of the semester with careful consideration for Shuri’s personal recommendations, laid out exactly what kind of jobs they’d be doing over the summer and with whom they’d be working, and pointedly left the room while Shuri spoke to them privately about something she refused to disclose to Darcy.

At the end of that meeting, Darcy had a small group of anti-Accords zealots, frothing at the mouth to help her do her dirty work. 

MJ, Ned, and Peter are all eighteen and have the benefit of being young millennials: each of them is incredibly internet- and social media-savvy, in addition to their eagerness and resourcefulness. MJ shadows Darcy by day as her own PA. Ned manages a complicated digital group planner for the team’s many events (provided by Shuri),  _ and _ somehow manages all of Darcy’s video editing and photoshop work. Peter shadows Steve as his team PA while Kate Bishop fills the remaining gap by covering the overwater villa as the team’s PA while MJ is out with Darcy all day. Sometimes, Kate even acts as an unofficial nanny for Evelyn. 

In fact… As she’s laying in bed, Darcy adds a quick note to her phone to sit down with Kate and offer her a job as part of the summer PA team. She’s doing the work of a personal assistant  _ and _ a part-time nanny; she might as well get paid for all of her hard work, too.

Darcy’s been lying awake for hours, trying to occupy her mind rather than thinking about something she stumbled across today while the team gathered in the hospitality villa for a group lunch. 

Clint and Evie were running late for lunch. Last she heard, they’d gone up to the children’s library on the third floor to find something to read at bedtime later that night. Sure enough, when Darcy hit the landing at the top of the stairs, she found Evie perched on her daddy’s shoulders, one hand buried tight in the hair at the back of his head as a handle while she reached up high to pluck the book she wanted about a baby bat from the top shelf.

When he stretched up on his toes, Clint’s collar slipped down an inch or two, revealing a dark, reddish-purple mark at the base of his throat.

A hickey.

And Darcy just doesn’t know what to do with that information.

They aren’t  _ together _ . Haven’t been for the past two years. She has no reason to have any feelings about who’s chewing up Clint’s throat at all.

Except… Evie spends the night with her dad now. If he’s bringing a strange woman back to the villa at night… Or women? Shouldn’t they talk about that? At the very least, she’d have appreciated a heads up so she could explain big changes like that to Evie.

She’ll find a way to bring it up in the morning, she decides. Maybe Nat could help her navigate that discussion without it turning into another blow up between them. She hates those arguments. He immediately gets defensive and never ends up listening to what she wanted to talk to him about in the first place.

It’s exhausting, trying not to set him off. She knows a lot of it is the lingering remnants of the mindfuck Loki pulled on him, but it doesn’t excuse his refusal to do anything about the clusterfuck in his head that he’d more likely take out on Darcy than anyone else when they were still together. She wanted to be a good partner, but she wasn’t any better prepared to deal with alien mindfuckery than he was.

Then they got pregnant and Evie needed her more.

Mind you, Darcy’s got regrets, but Evie isn’t one of them. She wishes things could have gone differently or ended better with Clint. Maybe she’d have a better idea of how to approach this new minefield with him if that were the case.

The whole thing, just thinking about it—all of it—makes her tired. She closes her eyes and wills her mind to stop circling and winding her up, repeatedly replaying that same moment over and over again.

Clint’s collar slips down.

The skin is reddened and raw looking around the bruised mark.

But the hickey is unmistakable.  Clearly, someone felt a need to mark their territory.

And while the resort is hardly bereft of other travelers, they’ve really only seen a few other families and a group of what had to be potential investors.  When did he have time to meet someone on a tropical atoll housing fewer than two hundred guests and staff at any given time?

God, she hopes he’s not screwing around with someone from the resort staff. She does not need that kind of aggravation in her professional life right now, especially if the woman is suddenly turning possessive four nights into an eight-night stay.

When her phone rings, Darcy is almost glad for the distraction from her racing thoughts.

Until she sees Clint’s name and number appear on the caller ID. 

She fumbles with the lock screen, swiping and answering before the phone is even near her ear. “Clint?” 

The only sound coming from the phone is terrified shrieking.

“Evie?!” She rolls to her feet, grabs the first thing her hand touches to cover her underwear, and bolts for the stairs. 

As her foot touches the top step, she finally hears something else—Clint crooning soothingly to Evie.

Bucky’s voice drifts closer to the phone. “Darce?” 

It’s hard to hear over the agonized screams, but it’s definitely Bucky. 

“I’m sorry to get ya outta bed so early, doll, but the kiddo’s havin’ a hell of a nightmare here, screamin’ bloody murder for her daddy. Got her eyes open and all, but it’s like she can’t even see us,” he says over the screaming.

“It’s a night terror.” She presses a hand to her throat as she ghosts down the remaining stairs. She thought Evie had outgrown these. 

“What should we do?”

“I…” How on earth does she talk them through this over the phone? 

She can’t, she decides. 

“Just try to keep her from hurting herself. I’m on my way.”

“I’ll leave the door open.”

She taps to end the call and turns in an uncertain circle, faltering, wondering what—  _ if _ she should take anything…

Then remembers she left the mild, Jabari sedative prescribed by their Wakandan pediatrician at home. 

MJ and Wanda appear in the doorway to the TV lounge, followed by Kate, who stayed over for a girls’ night thing. Darcy vaguely recalls the conversation as she searches the kitchen counters and drawers for the keys to the damn golf cart on loan from concierge.

Kate passes something to Darcy over the kitchen counter in the dark. “It’s Evie’s Hawkeye bear. She left it in the golf cart earlier. I forgot I stuck it in my bag so it wouldn’t get lost.”

“I’ve… I’ve gotta go,” Darcy says, moving on autopilot, keys and bear in hand. Maggie Paxton’s already standing by the coat closet at the front door, waiting.

Darcy can’t fathom how everyone is just  _ awake _ at this hour—

“Heard your feet hit the floor—and the screaming through the phone, obviously,” Maggie’s saying as she takes the thing from Darcy’s other hand—an old hoodie—and holds it out for her to shove her arms into. “Nothing good ever happens at two in the morning when someone rushes downstairs after a screaming phone call. I’ll drive.” She hustles Darcy out the door as Sam hits the bottom of the stairs in nothing but patriotic boxers and a shoulder holster with a first aid kit in his hand.

“Darcy, what happened?” he demands, chasing them out the door.

“Bucky called. Evie woke up with a night terror. I thought she outgrew them.” She swears she thought they were a thing of the past, she thinks as she pulls her feet up on the seat to wrap both sides of the hoodie around her knees to keep her body from quaking with worry. Her baby must be so scared. What if this is the one time she can’t calm her down? They’re so far from home, so far from their pediatrician. She had to be sedated more than once back in the beginning when they were really bad… 

“You’re sure it was Bucky?” Sam asks, climbing into the backseat. He stows the first aid kit underneath the long bench seat.

“Huh?” She can’t parse the turn the conversation has taken. “Evie was screaming. She…” Darcy blinks. Her hands shake. It’s terrifying every time. She can’t imagine how Clint is coping with it without any warning. God, she’s a terrible mother. She didn’t even think to  _ warn _ him.

“I’m coming with you,” Sam decides, sliding up behind her to tug her seatbelt across her chest himself. “Just to be on the safe side. We’ll talk about security risks more in the morning. If this thing has lights, use ‘em, Maggie,” he orders the other woman.

Six agonizingly long minutes later, they’re pulling down the lane to the island villa and Darcy can hear the shrieks of terror echoing through the jungle. She bites her lip and does her best not to whimper in sympathy and stomp at the imaginary pedal on the floor to make them go faster, anything to get to her baby sooner.

She doesn’t even remember Maggie parking the golf cart. Bucky’s at the door waiting for her and he’s in just as much a hurry as she is. He scoops her up in his arms and bounds up the stairs ten times faster than she could have managed on her own.  She’s already by the bed, reaching for Evie, when she distantly hears the other adults greeting one another with sleepy murmurs over her baby’s paralyzing screams.

“Evie, Mommy’s here, honey,” she’s adding to Clint’s soothing reminders that he’s here, Evie’s safe, everything is okay.

It’s not okay. Not even close.

“Evie, honey,” Darcy’s doing her best not to cry, too, and make it worse for all of them when the baby suddenly jerks back and slams her forehead against her mother’s sternum, wailing for her daddy.

“Darce, I’m so sorry,” Clint apologizes, sucking in a sharp, sympathetic breath at the moment of impact. “I don’t know what happened. She was fine, then just woke up screaming like this out of the blue.”

“It happens,” she tries to assure him, but the baby rears back again, ready to slam into her mother’s chest with all of her tiny might. Darcy braces and takes the hit, trying to wrap her arms tighter around Evie to give her less room to thrash.

“It didn’t.” Clint sits on the floor at her feet, rubbing one of Evie’s pudgy, little hands gently. “Nightmares, sure. Not this. I’ve never seen her do this before.”

Darcy closes her eyes and swallows, wrapping the baby up as tightly as she dares and trying to immobilize her so she doesn’t hurt herself. “This is … more recent,” she pants through the exertion of trying to pin the baby to her front without hurting her.

“Not my daddy!” Evie wails into her mother’s throat, opening her mouth and sinking her teeth in deep. She screams into the bruised flesh and the pain is so sharp, Darcy can hardly breathe. She’s chewing around the words when she wails again, “Don’t take my daddy! Pwease, pwease! Weave my daddy awone!” Evie thrashes and Darcy feels the skin tear under those tiny, gnashing teeth.

“Jesus fuck, Darce,” Clint breathes, scooping something up to dab at the blood gushing down her back and chest. Now she’s crying, too, but there’s nothing she can do. The baby will only hurt herself if Darcy lets go. 

Bucky barks something at Wilson and slips a hand between Evie’s face and Darcy’s throat, yelping when Evie’s little teeth latch onto his hand next. 

“Whyyyyy???” the baby screams into the flesh of his palm. “Aun’ Tassa hurt my daddy! No, daddy, no! Bad men weave my daddy awone!” She’s kicking and nails Darcy on the inside of her thigh, knocking the breath from her lungs and bringing her to her knees.

“Do something, Sam!” someone shouts as hands appear from all sides to lift Darcy and Evie from the floor back onto the bed.

“What the hell.” Clint’s got one hand on Evie and one on Darcy’s neck, trying to stanch the bleeding. “Baby girl, please stop wailin’ on your mom. Please. You’re okay. You’re safe, Birdie.”

“Sweetheart, please, please,” Darcy can only beg, tears coursing down her cheeks. She thought they were past this. She never wanted Clint or Nat to see Evie like this. If she'd had any idea this would happen again… 

“I can’t just sedate a kid with a super soldier-strength sedative, Barnes!” Sam growls at Bucky with a phone held to his ear. “Shuri’s contacting their pediatrician.”

“Darcy…” Clint somehow rises to press his forehead to her temple. Someone else holds the cloth against her neck to sop up the blood. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she’s apologizing, crying, shaking her head. “I can’t fix it. I forgot to pack her sedative. It’s been almost two months since she’s had a  _ regular _ nightmare. I thought she was past this. They said she’d outgrow it. I’m so sorry. I would have told you, I swear I would.”

“Hey, no, no.” Clint’s weight settles beside her on the bed. His fingers are gentle on her face as he tries to calm down both of them. “Not your fault, Darce. Sam’s got this. We’ll get you stitched up and cleaned up in no time.”

Bucky throws a leg up on the bed and settles down, too, effectively caging Darcy and Evie in between himself and Clint. They press together, the three adults, giving Evie no room at all to thrash or kick. Bucky’s got a viselike grip on Evie’s tiny head, but she’s giving him a run for his money, straining to thrash and bang on her mother’s throat through his hand at almost any cost.

Long minutes pass as the baby continues to shriek and wail, laying out all of her worst fears for everyone to hear. 

“She saw the fight in Berlin,” Clint surmises as the baby winds up for more nightmarish shouting about the bad men and Aun’ Tassa hurting her daddy.

“It was all over the news.” Darcy has no excuse, though. “I did my best to keep her from seeing it, but…” She shakes her head. A fresh well of blood gushes over the cloth someone is trying valiantly to compress hard enough to stop the bleeding at Darcy’s throat. “It was everywhere. It was all anyone talked about for weeks. You were gone and she kept asking. Maybe she asked someone at daycare. I don’t know. Thor got your message and came for us, but she already knew.” Darcy’s weeping on top of Evie’s curls, only adding to the mess and chaos.

“Got it,” Wilson announces, pulling on latex gloves and prepping a pediatric hypo.

When the baby slumps in her arms a few moments later, the only sounds in the room are the labored breathing of the people who rode it out with them and Darcy’s hitching sobs. It’s too much. She could deal with this alone, but there are so many fires to put out now, so many apologies to make, so much to fix… 

A warm pair of unfamiliar lips press to her forehead. Bucky loosens his hold on Evie’s head and pries his bloody finger from her mouth to climb off the bed and make room for Wilson to inspect Darcy’s neck.

“Gonna need to take a course of antibiotics, Darce,” Sam says apologetically as he wiggles the skin gently around the wound to distract her from the pinch of local anesthetic. The needle is cool when it slides under her skin. Sam explains there’s something in the mix that’ll constrict the blood vessels and slow the bleeding, too, so he can get a better look at the edges of the wound before he stitches her up. 

“Need more light,” he says and a handheld light appears over Clint’s head to shine down on her shoulder. She’s physically exhausted, emotionally drained, but does her best to stay awake while Sam peppers her with questions about some of the other scars around her throat—all from Evie’s night terrors—including one on her clavicle that somehow, ultimately fractured the bone.

“Oblique fracture, no splinters,” Darcy replies when he asks more about it. “That one happened early on, before I learned to immobilize her. She headbutted me, then bit me. Felt it crack when she bit me,” she slurs, exhausted, tipping back into Clint’s warm embrace. Her eyelids feel like they weigh a million pounds. “Takes after her daddy. Fights dirty.” She laughs even though she feels like crying.

“Go to sleep, Darcy. I’ll keep an eye on Evie while she’s under and we’ll talk about new strategies for dealing with this together in the morning,” Sam orders.

Darcy closes her eyes for just a second, drifting in Clint’s arms. The weight of Evie lifts and she blinks the fog of sleep away to see what’s happening. 

“I’ve got the watch with Wilson,” Bucky tries to reassure her, wrapping Evie up in her little Thor blanket.

But Darcy is drifting, too. 

She narrows her eyes suspiciously at Sam. “Whaddyou gib me?” 

“Just a light sedative so you won’t tear open the stitches if you flinch in your sleep,” Sam insists. “Shuri’s got a doctor from the mainland coming out to take a look at that bite in the morning. Until then, I don’t want to risk you popping the stitches while you’re too exhausted to care for it yourself.”

“Is … everboby okay?” Her head is reeling, but she knows they’ve done a lot of damage in the past hour. “Oh no,” she suddenly realizes. “Tassa heard dat, didn’ see?” she slurs all over Clint, pressing her head under his chin to steal some small measure of comfort she’s not sure she deserves.

“Nat’s a big girl. She did what she needed to, even if a one year old infant didn’t grasp the finer points of her strategy at the time.”

“I’m so sorry, Cwint. I fought see was getting better. See’s been so mush better,” Darcy tries to tell him, but the words feel mushy and wrong in her mouth. “Dere’s so mush, since d’ Accor’s. I didn’ wan’ you t’ have t’ worry abou’ dis, too.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his arms tighten around her and she drifts, safe and warm in the one place she knows nothing bad will happen if she lets go, lets him take control for a while and lets herself float away. 

She sleeps.

Once in a while, she tries to turn her head and feels an uncomfortable tug. Warm hands are waiting. They adjust her, arranging pillows and blankets that make it harder to turn her head.

“Cwint,” she murmurs into the one warm sliver of him she can still feel pressing against her through the covers. This is important. She  _ has _ to tell him. “ ‘s not your fault.”

“It really kind of is,” he replies with a sniff, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m so damn sorry, Darce. For everything.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “That’s gonna make for a hell of a scar unless Shuri’s sendin’ a plastic surgeon out here this mornin’,” someone murmurs near Darcy in the early dawn hours when the birds start to rustle and trill in the jungle outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of the love to my sweet, sweet beta ladies, Zephrbabe and phoenix_173.
> 
> Every single kind, thoughtful comment on these rarepair fics is precious to me. It's hard to stay motivated, sometimes, when the response to a fic is so much less than what you're used to because you usually write popular pairings or tropes. Like, in the back of your mind, there's always that doubt about what you're doing wrong, what you can do to fix it, is the story that bad, should you be writing something else... 
> 
> The people who leave kudos and find even just one small, kind thing to say in the comments are the heroes on fics like these. The commenters keep writers like me motivated to keep writing The Thing and I'm grateful to every one of them.

“That’s gonna make for a hell of a scar unless Shuri’s sendin’ a plastic surgeon out here this mornin’,” someone murmurs near Darcy in the early dawn hours when the birds start to rustle and trill in the jungle outside.

At least a few hours have passed, she thinks. She’s not knockout tired, but not ready to fight for the right to wrestle her way out of the covers the hard way before she has an accident.

“Gotta pee,” she manages to whisper to whoever is listening as the other person they were speaking to pads out of the room on near-silent feet. Before she can protest, a pair of strong arms is rising with her cradled in them. Her eyes feel gritty, like sandpaper, and there’s just enough light to make it hurt to try to open eyes swollen shut by tears.

“Haven’t had to do this for anyone since Stevie was nothin’ but ninety pounds of shitty attitude and righteous scowls stacked up in a trench coat.” Bucky’s rare, rusty laugh makes her feel better about having him cart her around to relieve her bladder. She’s mortified when he supports her weight while she yanks down her panties, but she’s gotta pee bad enough that that particular shame takes a backseat to her very great desire not to pee on herself or him in the process. Her eyes still aren’t cooperating and neither are her wobbly legs, thanks to the mild sedative, but Bucky’s a steady presence, offering himself as a handhold as she needs it and clearing his throat to make it obvious he’s turned his head away when she finds herself desperately wishing for more privacy.

“Clint?” she tries to ask, but even just swallowing to try to clear her throat and raise her voice tugs at her stitches. Her throat is raw from crying, too. She’s a disaster this morning.

“Couldn’t hardly make enough room between the two of ya to slip a dollar bill down the center the last few hours,” he jokes. “Finally got ‘im to go stretch his legs to chase after Sam. He was makin’ noises about whether or not the baby’d stay down without riskin’ another episode if he eased up on the sedative.”

“She’s okay?” Darcy whispers when Bucky fills a basin with warm, soapy water and brings it to her to wash her hands rather than forcing her to try to cross the room to the sink in her current condition. She can't help but worry about her little girl while she washes. Evie's had a few small injuries during these episodes, too. The entire time she's washing her hands, her mind wanders, reminding her of all the little things that could've gone wrong while she was out of it. But Bucky doesn't seem overly concerned. He returns with a warm washcloth a few moments later and wipes the suds from her skin before it starts to itch.

“She’s gonna be fine. Maybe a little cranky from the rough night and out of sorts from all the bangin’ she did on you and Clint with her hard little head. Clint’s gotta get X-rays this morning, too,” Bucky admits. “He felt somethin’ crack last night—a rib or two, maybe—but there wasn’t time to do much about it before she was poundin’ on you, too. Can’t imagine how you been handlin’ those on your own, Darce, the way she uses her little head like a battering ram.”

“Did Sam—”

“Yeah, Sam checked them over already. He’s the one ordered the X-rays for you two. Gave Hawk some low-dose painkillers last night.” Bucky helps her to her feet and does that throat clearing thing when she struggles to redress herself with a sliver of modesty.

“Fuck,” she curses, finally feeling what she’s wearing even though she still can’t really see it. “Did I rush over here in my underwear and Clint’s old hoodie?” She can’t help but cringe.

“All hoodies are communal property under this roof, anyhow,” Bucky assures her with a smile in his voice. “And it’s a good day when we remember to wear underwear with one, too.”

“Sorry. I’m jus’ so tired,” Darcy admits with a pained yawn when Bucky is forced to lift her into his arms again.

“Can’t imagine why,” Bucky deadpans, drier than the Sahara.

“I wanna sleep for a week,” she groans, then remembers: “Fuck, fuck. Clint prolly wants his bed back and you guys don’t even have a spare room right now. Jus’... Jus’ put me in the TV room, Barnes. I’m so sorry.” There isn’t a hole big enough for her to crawl into to hide alongside her mortification this morning. And gods, but she’d kill for a cup of coffee and a throat lozenge right now.

“It’s a California King XL, Darcy,” comes Bucky’s rusty laugh again. “I think Clint and I can spare the whole fourteen inches of it you’re going to occupy between now and breakfast.”

“ ‘Clint and I’,” she repeats, blinking, but the fog doesn’t quite clear enough to keep her from blurting out in surprise, “ _You’re_ the one who left that bigass hickey on his neck?”

He’s cursing under his breath and Darcy finds her smile growing with the sweet sound of every F-bomb. “That’s fantastic.” She’s grinning fully, extremely pleased with her discovery. “You two are actual facts perfect for each other. Identical skillsets and everything. And such nice butts. You'll match,” she coos happily, warming up to him immediately. (She wishes she had the coherency for a more polite congratulations when she thinks about it later, but knows she meant well at the time.)

“Well, we’re happy to have your slightly stoned blessing, Darce.” He chuckles, climbing onto the bed on his knees. He hauls her like a sack of potatoes right back up to the pillows to set her down and rearrange the covers around her again.

Darcy’s clinging to his neck and, sure, the drugs are swimming a little in her system, but not enough to keep her from saying exactly what she’s thinking.

“Aw, Hawt Bi Hawkeye, nooo…” she bemoans her short-sightedness. “I could’a been the _filling_ in that yummy super sniper sammich,” she whines just as another tiny pinch to her arm precedes her next drug-induced nap.

Because Bucky Barnes is a sneaky shit. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She can't sleep forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra beta thanks go to my girls, Zephrbabe and phoenix _173, for all the hours they spend listening to me bounce ideas and reading (and rereading) my nonsense until I figure out what I'm doing next. (I edited this update one more time today, so any remaining errors are mine.)
> 
> Extra _extra_ thanks go to all the folks in the comments on last chapter who've made it their personal mission to motivate and inspire me to keep working on this rarepair triad. Actual best readers ever. You guys are awesome. (^_^)

She can't sleep forever.

Bucky stays with Darcy for hours, though, sitting up against the headboard with her head and neck immobilized by pillows at his side. The door creaks after a while and Darcy blinks through gritty lashes at a haunted-looking Clint. He’s got circles under his eyes and Evie napping on his shoulder. Behind him, Maggie’s carrying a carafe of water with a lowball glass turned over top. 

“It’ll help,” she promises, laying a soothing hand on the side of Darcy’s tear-swollen face. She pours a glass and holds it for Darcy while Clint climbs in the other side of the bed with the baby. 

It’s a good thing these villas have giant king beds. Darcy doesn’t think three adults and a child would fit in many other hotel beds with an acre to spare like this one. 

“I’m gonna run back over to the house to grab the bag MJ’s packing for you,” Maggie informs her when she sets the half-full glass aside. “Kate’s coming back with me to help with Evie the next few days. You need anything for the little one?”

“I dropped her HawkBear when we came in last night,” Darcy suddenly remembers, despite the grogginess.

“Natasha and Steve found it in the driveway this morning,” Maggie assures her. “It’s in the wash.”

“ ‘kay.” Darcy drifts.

Sometime later, she hears the distinct accent of a Wakandan she’d know anywhere. 

“Dr. Béhanzin…” She can’t even roll her head to look at him with all these pillows from Bucky motherhenning her to death. It's really kind of sweet. 

The doctor settles on the bed to inspect Evie. A tall, older woman by his side helps him lift Evie from their nest of blankets and bedding. 

“Sam Wilson tells me you've had another difficult night,” the pediatrician remarks as he checks over Evie, pausing to listen to her heart and feel her pulse at each of her extremities. 

“No worse than her first few episodes,” Darcy assures him, wincing when Clint makes a distressed noise at her back. 

“I suspect a disrupted bedtime routine is to blame, but the excitement of vacation or even the security of spending so much time in her father’s company after a long absence could have triggered this new event.” He removes his stethoscope and wraps it around his neck when his preliminary examination is complete. “What’s important to remember is that these episodes  _ will _ decrease again in frequency. Frightening though they be, episodes such as this are a sign that Evelyn’s subconscious is processing and healing the mind in its own way. With sufficient sleep, daily exercise, and the continued patience and support of her family and therapy, this condition will improve.”

His calm demeanor and reassuring words always do this to her, she thinks, eyes welling with tears. “Thank you for coming all this way, Dr. Béhanzin.”

“It is no hardship. I love the beach and I love this little one.” He smiles, gently patting Evie’s knee. “I’ll be staying a few extra days, too, to observe her new routine and work on fresh solutions with your friend, Sam. He has some creative ideas to help you.”

Curious, Darcy struggles to sit up when the pediatrician turns to introduce his companion. 

“Your new plastic surgeon. My third wife, Maret,” he adds with a wink. “She’d like to take a look at your wound somewhere private, if you’re ambulatory this morning.”

“You’re also Dr. Béhanzin?” Darcy asks as Bucky and Clint move to clear the room for Darcy and her new doctor. 

Clint gathers up Birdie and leans over to press a kiss to the crown of Darcy’s head. She’s shocked silent when Bucky copies him with a gentle kiss to Darcy’s temple, grabbing another small blanket for Evie. (He checks one last time, though, does Darcy need anything before he leaves her to speak with the doctor alone? No, she thanks him.)

“I am Dr. Béhanzin, yes, but Maret is fine, too. There are so many Drs. Béhanzin these days. Our two oldest daughters, as well, and an elder son from my first sister-wife.” Maret takes the spot her husband recently vacated. “Let’s have a look at your Sam Wilson’s stitches, see if we can’t minimize some of this trauma to your skin, hm?”

Her consultation goes well. Maret approves of most of Sam’s work, only removing the last three knots to re-secure the area with smaller stitches whose scarring will fade faster over time with the special balm of Jabari she applies to the area. The tiny prick of a local under her skin provides temporary relief from the returning soreness that's been making Darcy stiffen up in her sleep. Maret phones in a prescription for something stronger until Darcy can manage the pain with a lower dose OTC pain blocker on her own. On the whole, Maret approves Sam’s work and compliments him when Darcy accompanies her downstairs to join the others on the patio for breakfast. She’s not too proud to cling to the doctor’s arm for the stiff shuffle down the stairs, but regrets it when Bucky and Clint cluck and fuss over her trying to take a seat at the breakfast table. Eventually, they convince her to curl up on one of the low lounges with Birdie under an umbrella. 

It’s a quiet day for everyone. Her brain is still too fuzzy around the edges to remember if this was on the schedule or if poor MJ had to reschedule half the week to give everyone on the island a day to recover from Darcy and her little drama llama’s nighttime adventure. 

She naps off and on, drifting in the lazy-making, midday heat. Occasionally, she’ll wake to the sound of water lapping against the concrete edge as Sam and Steve swim leisurely laps across the width of the pool. It’s even a little chilly in the shade when the sun disappears behind a cloud, but at the first sign of a shiver, Clint appears with a blanket to cover her everywhere but her stitches. The baby is wrapped up by her side like a little mummy inside one of Bucky’s giant hoodies. 

Eventually, the sedative wears off and Birdie is up and at ‘em with no memory of her night terror to stain the joy of a new day with her daddy. She’s upset that her mommy is hurt and needs rest, but thankfully doesn’t associate the injury with anything she herself has done. It’s a blessing.

“If you can spare Kate for a few hours, Cassie wants to take a diving lesson, but I'd rather stick close to Darcy for the day,” Darcy hears Maggie explain to Clint. She adds, with a pointed glance off to the side of the pool, “Just in case.”

There's a pause as Clint and Maggie silently acknowledge what's happening on the fringes of the gathering.

Nat is not okay.

It’s hard enough as it is for Darcy to watch the way Nat processes what she learned the night before, stalking around the edges of the group at breakfast and, later, around the pool, like she’s hyper aware of each of them, their positions, their needs, and potential threats to their family. It kills Darcy that she's in no position to do much of anything about it in her current condition.

Nat is suffering.

“Is someone besides Maggie watching Nat? Someone she can't overpower?” Darcy whispers to Sam when he leans close enough to check the edges of her wound after lunch. 

“Mm-hmm…” He lingers over the task, whispering back, “Rogers has eyes on her. We know what hypervigilance looks like, mama, not to worry.”

“I’m sorry, Sam.” She never wanted anything like this to happen. She loves Nat. Hell, Birdie loves Nat. Consciously, she’s fully aware her Aunt Nat and Daddy had a plan in Berlin and Aunt Nat just had to pretend to be one of the ‘other guys’ to make them think she was on their side, but childhood trauma and bad dreams don’t always agree with the rational mind. Therapy's been good for both of them. Darcy's grateful for it.

Meeting T’Challa after his change of heart about Bucky helped a lot, too. 

Birdie loves T’Challa. 

“Hey.” Sam stops what's he's pretending to do and sits back on his calves, waiting until she looks him in the eye. “Not your fault. Not Birdie’s or Nat’s, either. We’ve all got a hand in the responsibility for this one, looks like, ‘cept you and lil’ Birdie. Bystanders get hurt. We all know there’s a cost and do our best to minimize it, but it’s gonna happen sometimes that our families are affected, too. Don’t borrow trouble that ain’t yours, Lewis. Let us shoulder our part of it for once, and make it a little easier for you.”

Nat goes rigid at some unseen threat and stalks off into the jungle. 

Quietly, Steve rises from the water and ghosts after her, grabbing a beach blanket from the stack near the sandy path through the woods. 

“What if she goes in the ocean, Sam?” In her current state of mind, anything could happen to Nat if she swam out too far. 

“Rogers will keep an eye out. Ayo and Wanda are already down at the beach. She’s surrounded by our people, Darce, even if she doesn’t recognize it as a perimeter for her own safety.”

Darcy exhales, the breath rattling in her chest. 

“My mama’s keepin’ an eye on things, too.” He chuckles. “She’s got her butt in a hammock down there by the water with Shuri, the Princess Royal of Wakanda herself, on speed dial if we need more of our own people to keep Nat safe from herself.”

“This never should have happened,” she can’t help but repeat, turning her attention back to her … her family in the pool. 

She understands Maggie and Scott Lang so much better now. 

Clint and Bucky are in the shallow end with Evie, tossing her gently back and forth in the water and making her squeal with laughter. So far today, they’ve done lessons on doggy paddling and a brief session of poolside ASL, with Bucky coming up with the idea late in the afternoon to teach Birdie how to snorkel in shallow water so she can explore the lagoon with them during their photo shoot the following day. She loves the little flippers and how fast they propel her through the water when she figures out how to use them with her life vest and the snorkel. 

The tiny goggles take up her whole face. 

Bucky snaps a picture with his GoPro of Birdie and Clint grinning behind matching bright purple goggles and snorkels. She shows off her tiny, purple flippers to anyone who will listen and even grins for the camera underwater when Bucky begins the process of teaching her to hold her breath and swim under the surface. She makes her first successful dive for a weighted, neon diving baton just before the call to dinner and nearly falls asleep in her dumplings, she’s so tired by the time that course comes around at the family meal that evening. 

For her part, Darcy hasn’t even worked up the energy to change out of her underwear and Clint’s ratty old hoodie, but no one seems to care when he carries her to the table to set her on the long side on a wide daybed someone pulled up to the dining table. Birdie falls asleep between them and Bucky takes ten minutes before dessert to stretch out on the wide daybed behind the three of them to catch a combat nap with Birdie's waterlogged hand held in his. 

By bedtime, Darcy’s so relaxed from their quiet day off it doesn’t even occur to her to protest when Bucky and Clint carry Birdie and herself up to their master suite to tuck them in the middle of the bed with Team Extra Precautionary Sniper Dads on the outside like stalwart bookends. Darcy sleeps like the dead for nearly six hours straight before the fresh squeezed juice she had with her meds at dinner finally catches up with her. 

When she gets up to pee in the earliest morning hours, she can’t even feign surprise to find Nat waiting for her with her back to the room on the deck outside the open air bathroom. 

“You okay?” Darcy asks, padding out to join her, leaving a respectful arm’s length of distance between them in case Nat still needs her space. 

“Will be.” Her face gives nothing away. “I wish you’d told someone.”

“I did,” Darcy argues. “She has the best doctors and therapists money can buy. Her daddy and daddy’s friends have a difficult job. I protect her as much as I can, but people recognize you guys. Cameras and phones are everywhere. This is… Nat, I’m sorry, but this is the price of loving an Avenger.”

“Do you?” Nat asks. “Love him?”

“He's Birdie's dad. You know I do.” It hurts to admit and she won't say how much— _so much_ —especially now, knowing he’s got something great with Bucky that suits them both so well. So much better than she ever did. 

“You know I love you and Birdie, right?” Nat’s whisper is barely audible over the murmur of ocean waves lapping at the distant shoreline. 

“I never doubted it, Nat.”

The redhead nods, rising to her feet. She strokes Darcy’s head through the hoodie one time, slipping away between shadows and disappearing over the rail to her own patio below. There’s a sleepy grumble of acknowledgement from the bottom floor bedroom suite, then silence. 

It’s been a long day. 

Darcy can only hope the rest of this endless summer has nothing but good things in store for them.

Thor knows they’ve earned it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to holler at me in the comments to tell me your favorite part! (Or just pterodactyl screech at me/the characters/Scott Lang/whatever. THAT'S COOL, TOO.)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I hate to leave you guys alone while she’s still sleeping.” 
> 
> The whispered words are the first ones they dare to speak aloud in the hour before sunrise on the island. The four of them—Evie, Darcy, Clint, and Bucky—had one fully peaceful night out of the last four. With no one willing to rock the boat this close to sunrise after their first night without any kind of nightmare or upset in several days, Clint and Bucky sign their way through a quickie in the spare room’s shower. They follow it up with a post-coital briefing for the day before they part for a few hours to wrap up their business in the Maldives. 
> 
> They’re low on pretty much everything a week into the trip and concierge can scrounge up most of what they’ll need before departure time, but some things can’t be staffed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anybody who tells you that leaving comments doesn't matter does not understand how your motivation and kindness and inspiration all breed more motivation and inspiration. Some of y'all have had amazing notes and ideas you've left in comments, or just made my day with your thoughtful, lovely replies. And I know it's been hard for some of you, that finding something to say doesn't come naturally and you struggle to find something in each chapter, and I'm grateful for you, too. It matters. Every time someone takes the time to be kind and try to inspire me to continue writing this rarepair triad, it absolutely matters to me. Thank you.
> 
> And thanks also to my beta baes, Zephrbabe and phoenix_173, who inspire and cheer and motivate in their own way, too, and almost hardly ever give me shit about staying up all night to write instead of sleeping. Writer friends are the best kind of friends. (^_^)
> 
> About this chapter: you know that part at the end of a rollercoaster when you realize you survived and you're melting in your seat with relief that the only part left is that little turn at the end to come into the station? This emotional rollercoaster is just about there, except those little bunnyhops on that last straight track, followed by the little jazzy bit that rattles your teeth and makes your tiddies wobble in your best bra? That's this. SO HOLD ONTO YOUR BUTTS.

“I hate to leave you guys alone while she’s still sleeping.”

The whispered words are the first ones they dare to speak aloud in the hour before sunrise on the island. The four of them—Evie, Darcy, Clint, and Bucky—had one fully peaceful night out of the last four. With no one willing to rock the boat this close to sunrise after their first night without any kind of nightmare or upset in several days, Clint and Bucky sign their way through a quickie in the spare room’s shower. They follow it up with a post-coital briefing for the day before they part for a few hours to wrap up their business in the Maldives.

They’re low on pretty much everything a week into the trip and concierge can scrounge up most of what they’ll need before departure time, but some things can’t be staffed out. Clint’s gotta run to the pharmacy on the mainland for more of the Wakandan pain meds Darcy’s taking that are safe to use while she’s still nursing the baby. She has enough to make it to lunch, but today is their last day on the atoll and the errand has to be run before time gets away from them. While Darcy’s PAs are exceptionally good at their jobs, none of them speak any of the languages they’re likely to need on the mainland, so Clint’s volunteered to take care of it himself.

“We’ll be fine,” Bucky signs, pausing in the doorway to the master suite to look in on the girls on his way to see Clint to the top of the stairs.

“God, she’s beautiful,” Clint signs with a quiet sigh as Darcy turns over, her long, sable hair fanning across the pillows beside the baby’s little tuft of wild blonde curls. “They both are.”

“I got eyes almost as good as yours. I can see that,” Bucky signs with an indulgent smile. “I’m just sorry I ran my big mouth the other night and you got one more obstacle in the way now.”

“Darcy knowing the truth about us sleeping together is the least of my worries right now.” Clint gazes into the master suite with sad eyes.

“Wait…” Bucky signs. “You said you and her were always arguin’ instead of talkin’... You  _ told _ her that, right? That’s she’s beautiful? That she matters?”

Silence. 

“Clint!” Bucky signs with as much exasperation as he can put behind the two-handed sign for his name.

“No,” Clint signs at the floor, looking for all the world like he’d love nothing more than to sink right through it to escape this conversation. 

Or jump over the railing. 

Or something equally stupid and dangerous.

“Don’t you dare.” Signing furiously, Bucky marches across the landing, “She’s the mother of your—”

“I know!” Clint gestures wildly back, signing almost so fast, Bucky can’t keep up. “We broke up because I’M. BAD. AT. RELATION. SHIPS.” (He uses the plural sign for the ‘Titanic’ in place of ‘ships’, and Bucky has to give him that one. They’re two of them failboats in a pod, Clint and the goddamned Titanic.)

Clenching his fingers, Bucky stops in front of Clint and grabs his shoulders, sliding his hands down to his wrists to hold him there and give him a little shake for good measure. 

“Okay, okay…” Bucky pauses, collecting his thoughts to prevent himself from shaking Clint until his teeth rattle in his fool head. “This isn’t news. We been over it. You’re gettin’ better at the communicatin’ all the time. She knows you love her, at least, so you’re not completely behind the eight ball on this,” he whispers with some relief. 

He doesn’t want to screw this up for Clint any more than he ultimately wants to climb out of Clint’s bed to make room for Darcy to climb back in it, but… Clint really is bad at the stuff that matters to dames. Bucky knows he’s a kind of release valve for Clint, but he thinks maybe that’s part of the problem—Clint thinking that’s how he’s gotta deal with the big shit instead of taking it home to his friends and family like an anchor chained to his leg. If that’s how he treated Darcy when they were together, maybe, Bucky realizes, maybe he’s only serving as a stop-gap now. 

“Um,” Clint mumbles and signs.

Bucky replays the last thing he said to try to figure out where Clint’s head is now. 

Shit. 

_ Seriously? _

“Clint.” He makes a sign that should mean ‘goddamn it’, but probably means ‘angry donkeyfucker’ with Bucky’s luck because his ASL gets so damn sloppy when he’s mad (and Clint Barton, Actual Human Disaster could make a priest swear the house down), so he growls really, dangerously quiet under his breath, “You didn’t tell her you love her?”

“I was poorly socialized as a puppy!” Clint hisses, pressing his aid into his ear to make sure he’s pitching his tone low enough.

“You’re still poorly socialized!” Bucky hisses back. “And stop blaming shit on the circus! She thinks you don’t love her?”

“I don’t know what she thinks! We didn’t talk!” He’s hissing and pacing now, but at least he’s mindful not to stomp around while he’s at it. He finally stops in front of Bucky. “Buck… I was really fucked up after the Battle of New York. We met before that, screwed around some, and it was light and easy. It was a lot of fun, but I was a different guy then. I didn’t have an alien mindfuck chewing up half my brain when I met her. She knew that old me.”

“What happened after New York?” Bucky grabs him by the hand and tugs him back to the spare room before they risk forgetting where they are and shouting at each other over nothing.

“Nat called her, told her about Erik and me … and Coulson. Darce dropped everything, boarded the first quinjet that landed in the quad at Culver, and never looked back. She never even went back to school, far as I know. Nat found her a short-term rental in Marine Park and Stark arranged some kind of transcription thing for her with Foster through Stark Industries.”

“She just packed up, left school, and moved to New York?”

“Nat told her I needed her,” Clint says with so much misery in his eyes, shoulders slumped, head hanging like a scolded dog who chewed the furniture; he knows how the conversation is going to end before he admits it.

“And you let her uproot her life like that to take care of you and didn’t even bother to see a shrink all that time?”

“To be fair, they were probably Hydra, since all the shrinks I would’ve been referred to worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. at the time.”

“Clint.” Bucky’s about fucking done with the excuses. He’s gonna ask a terrible thing and Clint’s gonna curl up into an angry pillbug, but maybe it’s what he needs to hear. Tough love and all.

“I like Darcy and I love that little girl you two made like she’s my own family, so I ain’t askin’ as just the guy sucking your dick when I say—in all that time, did you ever _once_ put Darcy first? Ever ask her what  _ she _ needs?” Taking a deep breath, Bucky plunges ahead with one more: “Did you  _ show _ her you love her? Or that you appreciated her walking away from the life she’d been working to make for herself to become a glorified secretary so she’d be available to stroke your ego and  _ your dick _ between missions?”

Silence.

“I think you better go.” Bucky’s had more than goddamn enough.

An hour or so later, he’s sitting up in the big king bed beside Darcy when the baby rolls over and shoves her mother’s shirt up with a grunt to latch onto a nipple and help herself to first breakfast like the little Hobbit she is. It’s nothing new under the sun to Bucky. All his sisters nursed their babies and his ma did the same, but Darcy’s a bit self-conscious about it sometimes when she wakes up and the baby’s got her shirt up around her ma’s neck with her mouth working one nipple and her busy little fingers fiddling with the other. Bucky remembers his little nephew Jamie liked to do the same and it pissed Becca right off every time because she'd leak all over her blouse.

Bucky does his best not to look. If he sees her shirtless someday, he’d rather it be because he’s earned the privilege. Being a swell guy ain’t so hard, after all. And he’d prefer she think taking her shirt off so he can appreciate her up close is her own good idea.

After Evie’s first night terror a few nights back, it took a little convincing, but Darcy agreed to stay at the island villa when Bucky pointed out how quickly he and Stevie heal if the baby gets to biting and headbutting again during one of her episodes. Darcy insisted they’d stay in the spare room once Kate made way by bunking with Wanda. In theory, it would’ve worked out great. 

Except Evie is very much a daddy’s girl these days. She’ll wake up from a dream, climb out of her ma’s bed, and go off exploring on her own in the middle of the night, looking for her pop. The first time, they found her in the sala up on the rooftop deck alone, snoozing on the daybed in the outdoor lounge area with her little HawkBear in her arms. (Neither Darcy nor Clint are particularly surprised by this. Seems the little one’s always had a thing for the high ground like her pop.) It’s when they find her on the landing at the top of the stairs with her head stuck between the slats, upright and asleep, that Darcy decides something’s gotta change. The next night, they try a group sleepover in the large main salon, but Bucky wakes up to find the baby’s crawled clear of her ma to clamber over himself and go sleep on top of her pop. Which would’ve been fine, except the little Hobbit has that first and second breakfast habit that can wake her anytime between three and six in the morning, so it’s back on over to Ma to latch onto the tit, waking up everybody in the salon in the process. 

When they convince Darcy to move back to their room with Evie between her and Clint, everybody’s night improves dramatically. The doctor thinks this solution is golden for the next little while, too.

Great.

Or would’ve been great.

Except Bucky’s just now realizing he’s more or less broken up with Clint this morning when he told him he better go, meaning they’re back to playing musical chairs at bedtime unless he wants to sleep in a bed with someone he’s pretty pissed off at.

Bucky understands Darcy a little better every day he knows Clint.

The nipple twiddling is what eventually rouses Darcy enough to turn beet red and try to cover herself up while the baby grunts harder and burrows deeper as if somebody’s gonna steal the tit right outta her mouth. 

“What?” Bucky asks, concerned when Darcy grimaces.

“She’s chewing,” she growls, putting her hand on Evie’s head to push her back and try to break the suction with her free hand, but the baby isn’t having it. She burrows right into that tit face first like a girl on a mission.

“Hey, give your ma a break, kiddo. You’ll pop ‘er stitches” Bucky nudges the baby. 

Nothing.

With a muttered apology for the familiarity, he shoves a hand between the baby and her ma, sticking a finger inside the rim of the baby’s top lip to break the suction. When she opens her little mouth to gripe about it, Bucky whisks her up in his arms so her ma can yank down her nightshirt real quick.

“Noooo! Ducky, no!” Evie swipes at him, clawing at the covers to try to get back to Ma’s Breastaurant.

“You remind me’a Becca,” he tells the cranky toddler when she pounds on his chest and claws at it instead in overtired frustration.

“Who Decca?” the baby demands with as much attitude as Stevie ever had at that size, jamming her finger in her mouth and trying to stick it in his ear covered in a wad of milky spit.

“My little sister,” he explains, expertly dodging the wet willy she’s burning to give him. “She was a little shit just like you.”

Evie sucks in a sharp breath and her eyes widen in surprise. (A dribble of milk slobber drops from her finger onto the covers.) “Das a dad word.”

Her little mouth hanging open in surprise makes him chuckle. “A dad word, huh?”

She nods against his shoulder despite her best efforts to stay mad at him, curling up in her favorite spot between the metal cuff of the prosthetic and his neck to flick at his ear with drool-slathered fingers. “Daddies say dose words.”

“Well, it sounds like I’ll need to have a few more words with your daddy when he gets home,” Bucky seethes, patting Evie’s bottom gently. She’s squirmy and uncooperative, but the motion and boredom eventually lull her back to sleep. Her little thumb creeps up to her mouth and the HawkBear falls over the side of the bed, but she’s snoring to beat the band after another ten minutes, so Bucky figures she’s down for her between-breakfasts nap for the time being.

All the while, Darcy’s reclining on the pillows by his side, silent. She’s got her nightshirt straightened out and her sleep bra all rearranged back where it belongs. When she’s sure the baby is out again, too, she signs, “A few  _ more _ words?”

“We had an argument this morning, our first one,” Bucky signs back when he's sure the baby won't slide down his chest. He sighs and admits, “I might’a broke up with him. Or left it open to interpretation. I’m not sure.” He has to finger-spell ‘interpretation’, but otherwise gets his fingers and hands around the rest.

There’s nothing to sign or say for a while after that, so they sit there together, two people joined only by a shared lover.

Former lover.

Bucky has no idea. Probably he’s as bad at relationships as Clint, come to think of it.

“Did either of you say anything unforgivable?” she finally breaks down and signs.

“No, nothin’ like that.” He shakes his head, but he stops, then signs, “But nothing I’d take back, either. I meant every word. The ball is in his court now.” He stumbles over signing the idiom and Darcy smiles, patiently correcting the position of his hands.

“I hope it wasn’t over me and Evie,” Darcy ventures, looking concerned with her delicate brow furrowed. “I’d hate to think we came between you. I’ve never seen him so happy as he’s been this week here with you. It’s like you light him up inside. He smiles all the time. And he’s so chatty and animated! Reminds me of when we first met in New Mexico. You must be really good for him, you know? I’m— _ was _ , I guess, I was happy for you—both of you. I hope you can work it out.”

Fuck. 

Does she not realize how much of Clint’s happiness has everything to do with her bringing Evie? With spending time with his baby girl and her ma? What kind of relationship did they ever have after the Battle of New York if Clint’s smile is such a rare commodity in Darcy’s worldview?

“Can I ask you something?” Bucky signs, leaning back into the pillows to get comfortable now that it looks like the baby might be down for her early morning nap for good.

Her fingers flick in a motion to go ahead.

“Did you keep the apartment in…” He huffs and finger-spells ‘Marine Park’ because he has no idea what the sign would be.

But that question brings her up short. 

“He told you about that?” she whispers.

“That you left school and Nat got you a place in the city after the Battle of New York because he was in a bad way. Not much else.”

A lump bobs in her throat. She lifts her hands to answer, then lays them back on the covers. She does it twice more, but can’t seem to find the right words.

“Living in the city is expensive,” she finally signs. “Once I started working for Stark—transcribing for my friend Jane through her Stark Industries office, Clint convinced me—argued me into the ground to give up my apartment to save money so I could finish school in the city someday. He moved me into his place at the Tower eventually, around the time they were starting to move the rest of the team Upstate.”

“So after the big falling out everyone had with Stark, you and Evie were… Doll, were you and the baby homeless in New York after you and Clint split?”

Her silence is damning.

A litany of curses curl and writhe on the tip of Bucky’s tongue, but he chokes them down. Stroking the baby’s back, he centers himself and silently curses Clint and his self-absorbed bullshit to hell and back.

“You have to understand…” Darcy explains quietly. “After the Dark Elves incident in London, Thor took me and Janie to a healing place to make sure we were both free and clear of the Aether. Clint wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of me going anywhere with Loki’s brother, so he came along. We stayed there for a long time, longer even than the time that passed in this dimension while we were away. Evie was born in the healing place, so this dimension, Midgard, was never her home before we broke up. He seemed better there for a while, though. Not exactly like the old Clint, but closer to what I remembered. We argued less and … well, I guess we probably didn’t talk much at all then. Not about anything important. A defensive mechanism on my part. I tried so hard not to set him off. That’s how we ended up with Evie. We just didn't talk about it until I told him he should go, that I couldn't walk on eggshells around him forever, and I wouldn't let our kid, either. He went back to Midgard to arrange for us to go back there, too, but when he came back for us… He was different again, harder and less patient after he found out about Hydra inside S.H.I.E.L.D., and I knew I couldn’t go home with him.”

“So he didn't arrange or provide a place for you to come home along with the child support he was giving you?” Bucky checks.

“He didn’t,” she admits eventually.

When she doesn’t specify what Clint didn’t do, Bucky’s Irish rises. 

Because he goddamn  _ knows _ .

“He didn’t set you up with a place to live to get back on your feet with the baby? Or he didn’t pay child support, Darce?”

“Child support wouldn’t have done me any good in another dimension.”

“You could’a come home to this one if he’d done right by you!” Bucky hisses.

When her eyes widen and pupils dilate in sudden flight response, Bucky backs off. Taking a deep breath, he closes his eyes and focuses on the weight of the baby on his chest, the rise and fall of her breath, the warm little puff of air against his throat every time she exhales. The scent of lavender baby powder fills his head and reminds him this isn't the place to let his Irish get up and out of hand. He'll have words with Clint later. Too damn many words _haven't_ been said, from what he gathers.

“He talked to Nat for me after I made my decision to raise Evie alone,” she defends him. “She had a place in the city, Uptown. The schools are good there and he paid for a great private daycare I never would have been able to afford on my own while I tried to find a job.”

“And did he get Stark to give you a recommendation? Or was that out the window along with the Avengers’ teamwork, too?”

“He recommended me to Shuri later on. After The Raft.”

“But in between?” 

“We stayed at Nat’s when we came to this dimension for a while after his retirement, tried again to work things out for Evie so they could see each other, but he was the same—distant and quiet. Then, he tried to send us back to the healing place before Berlin. He knew we’d be safe there with Thor and Jane. Thor came for us as soon as he could, but we were here for Berlin, for the fallout from it.”

“It’s no damn wonder this little lady sleeps like shit and screams her head off ‘til blood vessels burst in her eyes with a pop shuttling her and her ma around like baggage he don’t know where to unpack.” He tips his head back and wills away the urge to scream himself hoarse at the sunroof open overhead.

But at his side, Darcy’s bristling with anger. 

“We’re not baggage,” she snipes, fresh out of patience and done explaining herself. “I have a job. A good one that I’m fucking  _ great _ at. And I can provide a home on my own now. We don’t  _ need _ him, but I’m not going to keep her from him just because he’s not perfect. I know what mental illness looks like, Bucky. It’s not his fault. He’s trying.”

“He ain’t gettin’ better.” Bucky has an overwhelming urge to lay his head down and cry.

“What? Did something happen?” 

Christ, how is it she can still find it in her heart to care about somebody who got her in trouble and took her for granted over and over again? The capacity for empathy in women is as expansive as it is baffling to James Buchanan Barnes.

He swallows the lump in his throat, praying he doesn’t do something monumentally stupid like crying in the next few minutes, then starts talking, “After the fight in Siberia and the raid on The Raft, Sam and Stevie put their heads together and came up with a plan to fix everybody’s heads on straight before they started up this mission business again. You want on the team, you agree to see a shrink once a week whenever you’re at base.”

“That sounds … like a really healthy approach to difficult work,” she agrees tentatively.

“Clint goes to the shrink because it’s required, but he doesn’t talk. At least not about anything that matters. I know he’s been pulled from the active roster for it a few times when he couldn’t pass muster during the psych eval. Then, he shows up at my door thrumming with post-mission blues the second his feet touch Wakandan dirt. He’s quiet and tense, like he’s luggin’ all that baggage right along with him to bed with me. And I’ll fuck him stupid, Darce, I will,” Bucky whispers plainly, “a hundred times if that’s what it takes to break him out of his own head, but I know what he’s doin’. And I think it’s not much different than what he did to you. Maybe he doesn’t take advantage of me quite the same way, but he knows he took you for granted. And he can’t even own up to it when it’s just me and him tryin’ to figure out how to improve his relationship with you so you’re all in a better, healthier place for Evie. And here I am, like a dumbass, not putting a stop to more of the same bullshit, letting it go and letting it go, and calling him out for doing it to you, but putting up with it my-damn-self. Somebody had to break him of the habit, so I told him he better go.” He finally runs out of words, but saying it all out like that at once isn’t particularly cathartic now he’s got a bead on how he’s been enabling more of Clint’s same old bullshit.

More agitated than he’d like to let on, he rolls his lips when his eyes and throat burn with emotion. 

“Now I ain’t sure he’s comin’ back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates will resume early next week!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So what do you wanna do about it?” Darcy bumps his shoulder with hers. Her voice sounds watery and Bucky really doesn’t think he can handle somebody crying right now without giving into the urge himself. 
> 
> “Have sex with each other while he watches, tied up in the corner, and teach him the lesson he so badly needs,” Bucky answers without a second thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've gotta take a minute to thank my betas, Zeph and Nix, as always, for all of their hard work. They give so much time to making this the best story it can be. When you can, please take a moment to check out their author pages here on the Archive and show them some love, too. 
> 
> Okay. *deep breath* Y'all ready for this last little bump on the emotioncoaster ride? I know you guys are mad at Clint. He's been a total dickbag and headcase. And to be fair to him, he is suffering a pretty severe case of PTSD. Mental illness is no joke. Communicating is important, and Bucky knows that, so they do a lot of it here in this chapter, but lemme tell you something friends... The rest of this week? ORGASMS. SO MANY ORGASMS. ALL OF THE ORGASMS. Darcy's gonna need _chapstick_ on her fine china by the time Bucky's done dining out. ;-)
> 
> *****There is a domestic violence-related trigger warning listed in the end notes of this chapter. If the subject matter could upset you, I ask you to please review that trigger warning before reading or not to read this chapter at all. Your peace of mind is more important than knowing what happens in this chapter. Rest assured, the mention isn't graphic, but there _is_ a mention of it that I felt necessitated a warning.*****

“So what do you wanna do about it?” Darcy bumps his shoulder with hers. Her voice sounds watery and Bucky really doesn’t think he can handle somebody crying right now without giving into the urge himself.

“Have sex with each other while he watches, tied up in the corner, and teach him the lesson he so badly needs,” Bucky answers without a second thought.

Her burst of surprised laughter is a salve to the wounded parts of him he never shares with anyone. (He really is as bad as Clint, honestly.)

“I’m sorry. That was completely uncalled for.” He runs a hand over his face in an attempt to remind his mouth it can stay shut from time to time. “He needs help, not me rubbing his nose in his failure.”

“I mean, I’m not opposed. Have you seen how pretty your face is?” She tips her chin up on the pillows to grin at him.

“Yeah? Wait’ll you get a load of the rest of me,” he leers back, more out of habit than anything else.

“I walked in on you guys in the shower the other day. I’ve already seen my share.”

“Oh, did you now?” He flexes, twitching one pec, then the other at her. Does the same with his eyebrows, too.

“Mm-hmm…” She’s got her hand on his cybernetic arm and she’s drawing little circles right in the one spot where he’s got the most sensation. “You need to learn how to lock doors, especially when Evie’s down for her nap. She’s not a very heavy sleeper. And you never know when I might be up and wandering around, too,” she whispers with a sly wink.

They grin at each other for a few moments in humming anticipation until Darcy breaks the tension, “How would you feel about taking a pass on sexy, bi ex-boyfriend things I really don’t want to dwell on too much at the moment in favor of some no-strings snuggling?” She scoots a little closer and presses her body all along the line of his exposed metal arm plates. “And while we snuggle, you can explain to me why you and Clint were arguing about me in the first place.”

“It’s like this,” Bucky begins, raising his prosthetic in invitation. He smiles warm and wide when she takes him up on it, winding her hair up and pulling it over her shoulder to keep it from getting stuck between the plates. “Clint _wants_ to be better. He knows you and him argued all the time because of the shit in his head lyin’ to him, and how it’s about ninety-five percent of what drove you two apart when you were talkin’ at all. So now he talks to me, sometimes, and he’s maybe not always great at sayin’ everything that’s cloggin’ up his head, but one of the very first things he told me was how much he regretted what happened when you guys split. Devastated doesn’t even begin to describe the way he sounds when he brings it up now—that you wanted to raise Evie without ‘im, but I think there was a lot of depression muckin’ up the works, too, so fighting for you and her maybe didn’t occur to him, either. He knew you had to put Evie first and he wasn’t in any condition to make your lives better with the way he’d been screwin’ ‘em up so far.”

“He told you all this?” she questions, eyes full of doubt. “Willingly? Without a gun to his head?”

“I think Nat and Katie had been workin’ on ‘im a while and this was his first attempt at trying to act like a normal person who can’t just put an arrow in all his problems as a solution.”

“Oh, Clint,” she sighs, pressing into Bucky’s side. He can’t really get a bead on what she’s thinking, but he’s glad she’s open to taking a little physical comfort from him, even if it’s all he’s good for to anyone right now.

“If I’m real honest, Darce, I think Clint might’a hoped to use me as a filter or a moderator between the two of you to straighten out some of the stuff he’s been lockin’ up tight inside,” Bucky is forced to admit. “I always knew from the get-go this was a temporary thing, that I’d be paving the way for you and seeing myself out when the time comes, but Clint…” He pauses, side-stepping and picking his way more carefully around the landmines here. “Then, a’course, he saw that look you gave me at the airport in Wakanda and started runnin’ his mouth about—” Bucky stops again. No. It ain’t right. She don’t need to know about Clint’s perverted fantasies. “Well, that nonsense ain’t fit for polite company.”

“No, no,” she twists under his arm, laying her head on his chest. “Tell me. What did he say?”

“Darce, I mean it—it was just Clint runnin’ his mouth to wind us both up. He knew it was just talk. We both did. Do,” Bucky whispers because none of it is the kind of thing you say right out loud in a lady’s presence.

“What kind of talk?” Her hand curls around the inside of his elbow and strokes that one goddamn spot again. He might as well be Barton’s idiot dog begging for belly rubs and thumping his back leg, the way that little brush of fingers turns him to daisy-brained mush.

“The kind of talk that leads to folks havin’...” He presses his lips together again and gathers his thoughts. “You know Evie’s doctor?”

“Yeah?”

Bucky swallows the ball of nerves climbing up his throat. “And yours, Maret?”

She shifts to sit up and waits him out, ten times more patient than any sniper.

Bucky squirms and clears his throat, _trying_ to look her in the eye. “In Wakanda, it’s legal for a woman to marry whoever she wants, did you know that?”

Her head cocks at the turn the conversation’s taken. “Yes, but what does that have to do with Maret…?”

“Did you know she has three husbands? One of ‘em’s a bio-engineer, worked on my arm.”

Darcy’s mouth falls open.

“You, uh, remember the other day when you were stoned outta your head? You joked about … about bein’ the fillin’ in a sniper sandwich?”

The way the smile lights up her face like gold turns his belly inside-out. She’s so damn pretty with her pearly, gap-toothed smile and blue-green eyes the color of ocean water in the afternoon.

“You’re saying _Clint_ wants to make a Darcy sandwich,” she puts one and one and one together and finally picks up what he’s been putting down so poorly.

“I’m saying Clint _will not goddamn shut up about making a Darcy sandwich_. He’s been…” Bucky huffs and leans over to whisper for her ears only. “He’s been tellin’ me how you like to be touched. When and where and how. Can’t lay his damn hands on me without remindin’ me how you looked at me at the airport like you’d eat me with a spoon and chocolate sauce, given half a chance.”

“But,” he interrupts before she can derail him by doing something that’ll really fuck him up, like agreeing, “then I remember you left him for a reason, Darce. And I know he’s got amends to make, and he knows it, too. Those amends gotta come long before anybody leapfrogs to what’s next. He can’t just make some kinda half-baked plan to drag a third person into your relationship and hope I’ll fill in the gaps he leaves. And that’s… I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s been thinkin’.”

When she says nothing for a long few minutes, retreating into her own head and gaze sliding off to the jungle outside their window, Bucky taps the back of her hand. “Do you even … _want_ to get back together with Clint?”

“A week ago, I’d have said no without a second thought,” she admits with quiet, dignified reserve. “He’s a different person than the one I met, a different person depending on who he’s with. I always thought I just brought out the worst in him after Loki, reminded him of it every day because of my connection to Thor. It broke my heart,” she admits tearfully.

“And now?”

“I’m so stupid— _I know_ —still hoping _my_ Clint will come back, you know? My Clint’s been gone for so long, I’m not even sure if he was real or just what should have been a great three-night stand remembered through, like, rose colored glasses or whatever.” She swipes a hand under her eyes to dash away tears. “Seeing the way he is with Evie, even with you, the difference in him now, I can’t help but wonder if he _has_ changed.”

Suspicious, Bucky narrows his eyes at her until she admits, “And I always wondered if the real problem was me.”

“It wasn’t,” Bucky can say with certainty, wishing with all his heart she wouldn’t cry. He’s got sympathetic tear ducts, growing up with all those baby sisters. “His stubborn ass could drive a saint to drink, Darce. Trust me when I say it was never, ever you, doll. He ain’t all sweetness and light with me, either, you know. He has his bad days.”

For a minute or two, he just holds her there, enjoying the warm weight of her under his arm, the weight of her sleeping baby on his chest. A half-blind idiot could see why Clint ain’t ready to give this up, even if he sucks at fighting for it. Bucky has half a mind to kick Clint’s ass himself for nearly throwin’ it all away out of stubborn stupidity.

“Darce, if it’s just curiosity or loneliness, have yourself a wild fling. Hell, have yourself that threesome. You’re young. It’s one night. You can spare it and risk nothing. A hundred bucks says Lang would do it for ya without even knowin’ the other fella first.”

The face she pulls at the mention of playing tickle-tail with Lang and a stranger makes him wanna laugh like hell, but the baby’s napping, so he coughs around an amused snort.

Indulging the sudden urge, he leans over to press a kiss to her temple. “But don’t you take a man who’s done you wrong back just because you’re lonely and getting a little of the right kind of attention finally makes you feel like he’s given you the world on a silver platter. He’s still _wrong_. And he owes you the effort of tryin’ to make it right.”

“Even if he’s bad at it?”

“Even if he _sucks_ at it. He can learn from his mistakes with a little more effort.” Something wicked and sour curls in Bucky’s belly, a part of him that wouldn’t mind making Clint work to make it up to himself, too. “Or you could throw ‘im over and let _me_ show ya how a fella woos a pretty dame like you.”

“You’re already showing me,” she admits quietly, laying her head on his shoulder.

And if that doesn’t make his chest puff up with pride, Bucky thinks nothing ever will.

“I like this,” she announces apropos of nothing a while later.

“Hmm?”

“This.” She adjusts, squeezing his middle around the toddler sleeping on him. “How you’re always here when I wake up, no matter where we sleep. It’s nice. That you do that. That you’re here.”

“I don’t understand, doll.” He runs a hand down her shoulder, across her upper back. The sensors in his fingertips pick up the slow, steady thrum of her heart. “Where else would I be?”

“Clint leaves.” She says it simply, as a matter of fact.

“Darce…” Clint, you goddamned idiot. Bucky curses his boyfriend’s name blue. He knew there was something else missing, some damn _thing_ they’d missed. “Sweetheart, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess he never told you about his nightmares, either, did he?”

Then she smiles and it’s a little sad. “You have to sleep to have nightmares. He hardly ever slept when we were together. At least, not with me, not … since a few nights after the Battle of New York, I guess. If he slept in the apartment, it was after I fell asleep. He was hardly ever there when I woke up in the middle of the night. Not in bed, anyway. Usually, he’d leave after… Well, afterward. Sometimes, I’d get up to get a drink and jump about a mile because he’d sit in the desk chair in my living room, but I figured he was just up late, using my laptop at the time, before he headed back to wherever he went post-post-mission. It only happened once in a while.”

He never let his guard down enough to sleep around her back then? Not even _once_?

Fucking superhero martyrs and their bullshit, Bucky silently curses again.

“Doll…” Bucky takes a deep breath and explains as gently as he’s able, “Hawk wakes up early every morning because he has nightmares. Real bad ones. Or… I guess, he _used_ to wake up early, ‘til he realized I wasn’t in any real danger from him flippin’ the switch in his sleep.”

“What do you mean ‘flipping the switch’?” she whispers, but he can see it in her eyes, in the way they drop, the way they track back and forth across the covers, the way her fingers pluck nervously at the bedding.

She already knows.

“He’ll wake up in a real bad way once in a while, thinkin’ he’s still under Loki’s control, or fightin’ off aliens, or Hydra, or Stark’s murder bots. Pick one.”

But she knows _something_ , right? So…  

“Don’t tell me he never did around you. It still happens once or twice a month,” Bucky pushes, trying to keep his voice down. “I can see it in your eyes, doll.”

“Once,” she finally admits, but she won’t look him in the eye now.

“How bad?”

Her fingers trace her throat up high beneath her jaw and a tear spills down her cheek.

“Darcy,” Bucky’s voice breaks, “Doll, was it bad?”

“Once,” she repeats. She sounds so ... lost. Miles away from whatever memory she’s reliving in her head.

“He hurt you.” More violence sure as hell won’t help, but tearing Loki limb from limb would almost make Bucky’s day right about now.

“Not on purpose. And I wasn’t mad. Scared, maybe, until I realized how rattled he was, too. I thought a little therapy could help, you know? It wasn’t long after New York. A few days. _Everybody_ was still rattled.” Her lip wobbles and another tear spills over her lashes. “He blew up when I tried to talk to him after it happened, stopped staying over then. No more cartoons and breakfast in our underwear or long, steamy showers after that. Nothing … nothing like before. Even when I moved into his place at the Tower, he didn’t stay the night in the apartment.” She dashes away a tear. “It was like he put me there to keep me safe, even from him. He made a nest somewhere; that’s what Nat said. He needed the high ground with the noise in his head. She said give him time, so I did. It never happened again, so ... it worked, right?”

“But you both ended up hurting for _years_ because of it, doll.” Bucky can’t take it anymore. He pulls back the covers and lays the baby down with a sleepy little grunt in a nest of pillows, then turns to gather Darcy up properly for a hug. He’s not even sure she realizes she’s crying, so he rocks her and smoothes back her hair and holds her until the tears run out, mindful of her stitches.

He can’t help but wonder how long it’s been since she had someone to hold her while she cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: There is a moment in this chapter when Darcy recounts Clint, in the days after the Battle of New York, laying a hand on her in violence. I repeat: it is not a graphic mention. His action is implied. He wasn't in his right mind and Darcy knows that. _She's not excusing his actions._ Clint took steps so it wouldn't happen again (to the best of his strained abilities at the time). Darcy also understood his freakout at the time, took steps to protect herself and her child from the potential of further violence when it became clear he wasn't getting better, and ultimately, took a step back from that toxic relationship with the understanding that he had to _want_ to get better to get right in his own head and heart before she and her child could pursue any kind of normal relationship with him. Darcy does not consider herself a victim of domestic violence here, so much as another of Loki's victims. Though she is somebody who did not take a man's shit and is making him work for the privilege of having his family in his life by getting the help he needs. 
> 
>  
> 
> _End end notes: Did you survive? Are you okay? Do you need a hug? Or just want the orgasms now?_


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As is her habit, the baby wakes for second breakfast right around when Darcy’s barely had enough time to sleep and recover a little herself. Bucky pours her a glass of water from the carafe by the bed and slips out to grab one of her last few pain pills from the medicine cabinet in the master bath. While he’s there, he also grabs the balm of Jabari the doctor left to dab on the stitches to speed healing and fade the scars.
> 
> When he returns, they’re curled up together in the middle of the bed. Darcy’s singing and signing to the baby, an old Scottish tune, by the sound of it, one he thinks maybe he remembers his ma singing to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A final (few) word(s) of caution before you proceed (in case you missed the comment section on last chapter): This story is about a triad of people. One of those people is a mom who happens to breastfeed. As a mom who breastfed a toddler until he was three years old, I have a unique view of motherhood that informs my storytelling choices, a very different point of view than you may be accustomed to reading in fic because breastfeeding still isn't very common in the U.S. Breastfeeding a toddler is known as extended breastfeeding. It doesn't come with a handbook that explains all of what you can expect to read happening to Darcy in this story. You learn as you go when you nurse. It's a challenge; convenient, sometimes messy, frequently hilarious. XD
> 
> I'm writing Darcy as the mom of a toddler the only way I know how: based on my personal experience. The thing about lactating breasts is... Any stimulation is going to make mammary glands think it's time to feed a baby. Which sounds funny until you accidentally shoot your partner in the face like a firehose with milk in the middle of an orgasm. XD 
> 
> Darcy's breasts don't shut off just because she wants to spend an hour with her new sexytimes partner in this chapter (and the ones that follow). You're getting an unvarnished view into what that can mean in this story, for all three partners. Mom bodies do weird things sometimes! (^_^) Darcy and her partners are learning more about what that means here, too. That said, I sincerely hope you'll give me a chance to tell this version of mom!Darcy without bailing on me before you see where I'm going. I didn't write this as a kink, though it certainly will come up at some point in discussion in the story. This is the story I want to tell, about what this version of Darcy would be dealing with on all fronts—not just as the baby mama of an Avenger with PTSD. Darcy is her own unique person with her own life, whether Clint is a part of it or not. She's got a lot on her plate and, I think, a story worth telling beyond heroes and political intrigue.
> 
> HUGE thanks to my betas, phoenix_173 and Zephrbabe, for their assistance with this ... surprising chapter! XD

As is her habit, the baby wakes for second breakfast right around when Darcy’s barely had enough time to sleep and recover a little herself. Bucky pours her a glass of water from the carafe by the bed and slips out to grab one of her last few pain pills from the medicine cabinet in the master bath. While he’s there, he also grabs the balm of Jabari the doctor left to dab on the stitches to speed healing and fade the scars.

When he returns, they’re curled up together in the middle of the bed. Darcy’s singing and signing to the baby, an old Scottish tune, by the sound of it, one he thinks maybe he remembers his ma singing to him. 

“ _ My Bonnie lies over the ocean… My Bonnie lies over the sea… My Bonnie lies over the ocean… Oh, bring back, bring back, bring back my Bonnie to me, to me… _ ” She hasn’t got the words quite right, he realizes, the way lyrics sometimes get garbled over the years. He joins in as she begins the next verse, and she falls in with him to sing and sign, “ _ Bring back, bring back, Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me, to me, Bring back, bring back, Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me… _ ”

By the final note, Evie’s grinning around a mouthful of her ma, milk dribbling from the corners of her mouth down her neck and all over her ma’s shirt. She mimics the sign for ‘Bonnie’ and ‘ocean’ her ma and Bucky sang to her with a happy little kick of both feet. Then she closes her eyes and redoubles her efforts, determined to finish second breakfast this time before anyone can interrupt. 

“It’s been a few days since you had a proper shower or washed your hair,” Bucky brings up as he sits beside Darcy, gently dabbing the balm around her stitches and thinking about the normal morning things she mentioned missing out on with Clint back in the old days. When he’s done tending to her wound care, he rises from the bed to gather up what she’ll need for a wash and rinse. “I thought, while Clint’s runnin’ his errands, I could help ya wash your hair, at least, if you’ve gotta stick to the sponge baths another day or two. It’s not a long, hot shower with your fella or cartoons with breakfast, but it’s not the worst way to while away a Sunday morning, right?”

His back is to her, so when she doesn’t say anything, he turns around. “Darce?”

“You don’t have to do that,” she says, hiding behind her hair, tracing the baby’s powdered cheek with her finger.

“I know. But I want to.” He sets a short stack of towels on the table beside the bed to snatch up his phone and send a quick text while the baby finishes her latest round of breakfast. “Katie’s gonna be over here with Wanda in a bit. Forgot to mention they texted me when you dozed off there a while. They’ve got some idea to take the baby down to the bay at South Beach to make giant sandcastles before the team meets for brunch, if that’s okay with you. Cassie’s going, too. And Maggie, and Sam’s ma. And the scrappy little fella always fallin’ all over everything … Peter? He’s gonna take pictures, I suppose.”

“She’d probably love to build castles, but she’ll need to be back by eleven for a bath if we’re all going out for a late brunch.” She smoothes the wild tangle of blonde curls back from the baby’s face.

“Won’t be a problem,” Bucky assures her. He sits on the bed in companionable silence while the baby grunts and sucks and makes a fuss like a fat piglet at the teat. By the time she pops off with a loud “Ahhh…”, Bucky finds himself chuckling at the little brat’s antics and Darcy’s looking a lot more relaxed and less self-conscious about nursing in their bed. He’s got a wet wash rag ready to wipe Birdie’s face and hands so she doesn’t smear sticky milk prints everywhere, then braces himself and mentions, “Wanda and Katie are waiting downstairs to take you to the beach to build sand castles while I help your ma with her hair this mornin’.” 

Birdie squeals like to crack glass.

She loves Katie and Wanda.

“Your swimsuit is in the laundry room on the bottom line and your sandals are by the back door,” he reminds the happy tot. “Can you get them yourself or do you need help?”

“I do it!” Birdie informs him, absolutely sure of herself and her abilities. She scoots and shuffles off the bed, hitting the floor with both of her little legs already churning. She scoops up her HawkBear and makes it as far as the door before she turns right around to rush back and give her ma a kiss. 

“Ducky, too,” she insists, climbing up onto his knees to press a messy kiss to his lips. He sets her back on her feet with a smile and a gentle pat to her rump to send her on her way, then sends off one more text. 

“Be good for Wanda and Kate, Birdie!” Darcy calls after her.

“Otay!” Her tiny feet thump down together, one stair at a time, in her hurry to get to the older girls.

At the sound of the back door opening and Kate greeting Evie with another happy squeal, Bucky turns his attention back to Darcy. He offers his hand and asks, “How should we do this? You wanna try pulling a chair up next to the sink or sticking one in the shower?”

She takes his hand, but there’s a miniscule pause as she rises from the bed and glances through the door to the bathroom.

“What is it?”

“Wish I could take a bath,” she says, chewing on her lip.

The stitches are high enough to keep out of the water if she's careful and the wound is pretty well healed, so it’s got a good soft scab-over. He doesn’t see any reason she  _ can’t _ take a bath. 

Until he walks into the master bath suite and realizes what Darcy already knows. 

The wide copper tub is sunken in the floor in the open air bathroom with the walls open to the endless blue sky outside. Trying to get in and out would be tricky without pulling her stitches.

Unless…

“If I climb into the tub first…” he muses, considering carefully how they’d manage. It’s a wide, comfortable affair—plenty of room for extra limbs and/or a body to get her situated comfortably. “We’ll figure it out,” he promises, grabbing a basket off the counter to throw in a few more necessities in case he can’t run around the room while she soaks.

Ten minutes later, the only way they’ve figured out that works is for Bucky to sit in the deeper end of the tub and lift her from the edge into his own towel-covered lap. They’re ruining all the spare bath sheets with another one wrapped tight around Darcy, but it’s better than trying to do the same in a swimsuit she can't really wash in. They can rearrange the bath sheet to preserve her modesty and she can still bathe this way. It’s a bit clumsy, all in all, but the lady wants a bath.

The lady’s gonna get her bath.

While she soaps herself up—avoiding her stitches, Bucky retrieves the paddle brush from the basket.

“Would you like me to—?” He waves the hair brush where she can see it. At her nod and near-silent “please”, he takes a deep breath and gathers up her long hair in his flesh hand. With the brush in his cybernetic hand, he carefully starts working the knots out from the ends over her shoulder. By the time the brush reaches her scalp, Darcy’s given up on trying to soap herself. She stretches like a happy cat in a sun puddle, tipping her head back on his shoulder to give him room to pull the brush down the length of her hair to the side. The bristles drag along her skin, raising tiny pink weals down the front of her soft shoulder, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Her head tilts, offering up the long expanse of her neck. He tries so hard to concentrate on brushing out her curls until they shine, but she’s not making it easy.

The soft, verdant perfume of her body wash mixes with the warm water, rising in a cloud of steam around them. It billows in little ebbs and eddies above the surface of the water before the ocean breeze whisks it away.

The delicate shell of her ear is bright pink from the water warming her skin. 

Her throat on this side is pale, unmarked by battle or nightmare. 

She smells so good—scents that remind him of home. Lavender and chamomile. 

He closes his eyes and leans in to draw in more of the sweet, green scents clinging to her there. 

When his lips brush her throat, he doesn’t regret their intimacy, only lingers, drawing his lips along the length of her throat, tracing the sweet curve of it with the tip of his nose. At her ear, he presses his lips to the tender spot underneath and shudders when she trembles in his arms. 

“If you want me to stop, Darce, you just say the word, doll.” His hands circle her waist and the towel melts away. His dick stirs, suddenly hard enough to cut glass between one breath and the next.

“No, no,” she pants, chest heaving. “Don’t stop.”

He doesn’t stop.

Later, he might feel a bit guilty about the way his stubble abrades her skin, but he doubts it when he sees the mark— _his_ mark on her. There’s a tiny bit of the Soldier in him even now, pleased to mark her as his own, even one so subtle as simple beard burn. Subconsciously, other men who meet her will know what it is and what it means. She’ll feel it all day and be reminded of his lips on her throat, pressing a line of kisses from her ear to the spot on the back of her shoulder over a tattoo of a hammer made of stars. 

A constellation, his muzzy brain supplies as he traces the outline with the tip of his nose. At her delicate shiver, Bucky scoops a warm handful of water over her good shoulder, chasing that with kisses, too.

“You’ll spoil me,” she complains without heat, luxuriating under his undivided attention. 

He wants to give her more.

Her backside is subtly circling in his lap, but he's the one who makes the mistake of wrapping his hands around her middle to pin her to his front, realizing too late what a sweet armful she makes. 

He doesn’t want to let her go.

From there, it’s an easy slide up her ribs to cup the weight of her breasts in his palms, overflowing them with ease.

“This okay?” he checks, pausing as his fingers spread on either side of each nipple. She’s recently nursed the baby, so shouldn’t be in danger of being overfull or too sensitive, he reasons, but it’s only polite to check she doesn’t mind the stimulation. Enough of it and she might leak into the bathwater, he thinks.

Not that Bucky minds. 

His cock’s dribbling into the towel over his hips like a dog drooling on a bone, and neither love or money or anything else on this gods’ green earth could make him move her from his lap right now.

Their breath hitches together when she nods and makes a noise of assent, pushing her ripe tits into his hands in invitation.

Bucky doesn’t need to be told twice.

He rolls the thick berry tip of each nipple between his fingers gently, tensing and trying not to blow his wad when milk gushes over his forefingers. 

“Christ, that’s somethin’,” he murmurs, pressing the lower half of his face into the back of her shoulder to watch her body twist and writhe in his lap. Another spurt of milk and she arches back, sharp and ready, pressing down on his hard wood.

Good god almighty, it’s like taking a brass knuckle right in the snoot, the way his vision whites out for a second.

“Bucky!” she gasps, grinding her sweet ass against the towel torturing his cock. 

“Been too long, babydoll, I know. Lemme make it better, honey,” he croons soothingly, caressing each of her rosy tips with the callused pad of a thumb. He circles the areolae and they stiffen to dusky pink peaks. Another hot rush of liquid gushes over his fingers as her milk lets down. Her breath catches and he can’t believe it, but  _ she’s already there _ .

“Bucky!” she cries out, back arching against his chest. He slips a hand down her front and finds the soft center of her cleft, gently massaging her button to draw out the pleasure while he works over her nipple. 

It’s the sweetest torture.

Her hips buck against his hand, jerking under each new and unexpected touch. Her hips won’t stay still.

“Darce, I’m— I’m gonna—” He can’t catch his breath.

“Yessss…” she hisses when the penny drops, riding out her pleasure and doubling his. “Come with me,” she begs.

As if there’s any doubt he’ll follow wherever she leads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...still with me?


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “At the risk of being indelicate,” Bucky drawls when his vision turns something other than white again, “I’m guessin’ it’s been a while.” 
> 
> “Am I that obvious? Or just that easy?” she jokes at her own expense, rolling her head on his shoulder. Her fingers tangle with his and her thumb traces a light circle over the scars on the back of his hand. 
> 
> “Took me by surprise is all.” He strokes her belly with butterfly touches, almost afraid to rock the boat and draw attention to what he’s doing in case she suddenly changes her mind in the afterglow. “Got carried away and next thing I know, you’re already there. I ain’t even had a chance ta kiss ya yet, doll.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy a tender, thoughtful Bucky lover because that is what y'all are getting in this chapter. He lives to serve rn, and he's serving orgasms. ALL THE ORGASMS.
> 
> (Bucky mentions the Busty Highball Girl in this chapter. [This](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/AVM7hMwJq4l6KheAgt63feWOpHfAo0GsPX0Ug7O8LqXK8dXf_wB51TQ/) is what she looks like.)
> 
> Muchas gracias to my betas, Zephrbabe and phoenix_173, for their patience and assistance with this chapter.

“At the risk of being indelicate,” Bucky drawls when his vision turns something other than white again, “I’m guessin’ it’s been a while.”

“Am I that obvious? Or just that easy?” she jokes at her own expense, rolling her head on his shoulder. Her fingers tangle with his and her thumb traces a light circle over the scars on the back of his hand.

“Took me by surprise is all.” He strokes her belly with butterfly touches, almost afraid to rock the boat and draw attention to what he’s doing in case she suddenly changes her mind in the afterglow. “Got carried away and next thing I know, you’re already _there_. I ain’t even had a chance ta kiss ya yet, doll.” She’s so small in his arms, but sturdy in a way he’s not accustomed to dames feeling against him. She actually reminds him a lot of holding Clint, the way she sprawls out on him, loose and relaxed in the afterward, demanding all of his focus and attention for her comfort.

And just like that, she’s gingerly twisting around, face tilted up to his in expectation of a kiss.

She tastes like tangerines.

There’s a dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks, and the daintiest beauty mark above the corner of her mouth that curls and dimples when she smiles into his lips. The kiss is sweet and all too brief, Bucky thinks, but not bad for a start.

She tucks up under his chin and sighs happily, anyway, so he isn’t going to complain. “You’re right, though. Too long. By a couple of years,” she admits.

She wiggles and stretches out both arms and legs with a tiny squeak like a kitten, then sinks happily again into the deep curve of his torso. Her arms lay along his like an easy chair and the noise that comes from the back of her throat is happier than the most spoiled of house cats.

“Before or after the baby?” Bucky winds a damp curl around his fingers, again mindful of her stitches.

“Before.”

“Aw, doll…” Bucky can’t help but think what a cryin’ damn shame _that_ is. He turns his cybernetic hand over and threads their fingers together. “Sounds like you got some catchin’ up to do.”

“I’m not in a hurry or anything, but I wouldn’t say no to more orgasms.” She says the words into the space between them like a secret she’s not sure it’s okay to share. Not a dirty secret, just an admission too honest to meet his eyes because, for all its honesty, she’s right. There’s something not quite right about it at all—a healthy, sexually active young woman like her alone and untouched for so long. Bucky means to change that as soon as possible, if she’ll have him.

If she’ll keep having him.

“We got time.” Bucky shrugs, but he’s smiling and adjusting his hold to trail his fingers along her arms, drifting up the curves of her shoulders. She shivers, putting him in mind of the flowers opening for the sun on a balcony outside his billet after an early morning rain shower in Paris.

Damn, this dame sure is somethin’.

“And we got nowhere to be for a few hours. Probably we should get to know each other better, anyhow. For the team’s sake,” he adds just to see her pretty face flush with indignation before she catches the twinkle in his eye and thumps her head against his shoulder.

“Dork.”

“Mmm… Maybe so,” he has to agree. “We didn’t have that word when I was comin’ up in Brooklyn. S’pose you’d know better than me.”

“It’s a nonsense word, like geek or nerd,” she explains, propping up on her elbows and playing her fingers down the ridges of his ribs and belly, making him twitch under her.

Beneath the towel, his spent cock gives a valiant twitch of interest.

“Hm. Don’t know much about those, either.”

“I could teach you,” she says without a hint of teasing.

Tapping the button to drain the chilled, dirty water from the tub, Bucky sets about readying to refill it with fresh water. While it’s emptying rapidly from its two basin drains, he gives a gentle tug to the towel she’s still tangled in—giving her the option to keep and wrap up in it, or toss it over the edge.

“Teach me what now?” he teases, happy to accept the towel when she takes a deep breath and scoots forward so he can slide it out from between them.

“All sorts of things.”

She taps his towel, too, and Bucky lays a hand over hers. “You sure, doll?”

At her shy nod, he takes the opportunity to drag the towel from his lap up over his lower belly, swiping up the worst of his mess before tossing it all over the edge toward the laundry chute. Even that little bit of attention is enough to interest his dick in another round.

The feel of her bare skin settling across his lap is almost too much. He tenses, counting to ten and thinking about last season’s batting averages real hard until his cock cooperates. Not that it doesn’t nestle along her warm split, but he’s not quite so close to the edge as to embarass himself with a bit of focus and attention on anything else.

While they’re here, he decides as the water drains, he’d like to make a start on showing her how a fella with at least half his wits treats a dame. He reaches over to turn on and adjust the water flowing from the wide, waterfall tap, grabbing the jar of coconut massage oil from his basket of supplies. Thanking his lucky stars for his foresight, Bucky scoops out a dollop of the stuff and warms it between his hands as best he can. The prosthetic doesn’t generate heat, but friction can warm it significantly.

Obliging, her pretty smile deepens and her cheeks turn pink as she twists up her hair and rummages in the basket for a clip.

“I’ll wash it after if I muss it up. I promised anyhow,” he reminds her, stroking his hands over both shoulders, tracing lightly around her stitches.

He has no idea how much time passes. Not that it matters. All that matters in this moment is the feel of her silken skin and the soft, happy noises slipping from between her parted lips. The tub fills with cooler water to account for the rising temperature on their little open deck, and he explores her everywhere, surprising them both by wringing another orgasm from her when he works the oil into her full breasts and down her belly.

She’s _so_ sensitive here, he thinks, more sensitive than he remembers the dames back home had ever been and in ways they certainly hadn’t.

Not that he’s had so much experience before with a dame who’s had a child. He can’t help but wonder if it’s got something to do with her nursing the baby or just her long dry spell. Or something like the touch-starvation the docs say he suffered under Hydra’s control. And he has no idea who he could ask about such things so far from his new Wakandan home.

Sam’s ma, he considers. She’s a good scout and a good sport, too. And she likes Darcy just fine and dandy. She’ll help and probably won’t even give him any of that side eye she’s always dishing out to Sam.

Shit, Bucky thinks as the words ‘side eye’ come to mind.

_Clint._

“We put the cart before the horse a bit here,” Bucky regrets having to share the thought aloud as Darcy floats back down to earth. “Not that I think Clint would be real upset, but I don’t even know for sure how we left things. He’s got as much right to be pissed at me right now as I have at him.” He takes a deep breath and pushes it out forcefully. “Hell, I ain’t even that mad. So he’s screwed up. It’s not like he’s got the market cornered or anything, not where we come from.”

She tsks and turns in his arms, curling up against his chest for a snuggle while reaching for the basket. Retrieving the phone he’d tossed in there in case someone needed to reach Darcy about the baby, she taps out a message faster than he can follow and hits ‘send’, then turns the device to show him the screen. On it, there’s a chat window open to Clint. In the little sent message box, the last message sent reads, “ _Taking a bath with your Bucky. You mad at me?_ ”

“Darce…” he whispers in disbelief. That is _not_ how he imagined talking to Hawk about it.

Three little dots appear at the bottom-left.

They hold their breath and wait.

Instead of a message, a gif appears of a squirrelly-looking fella in a suit with a smug grin, tossing a handful of confetti.

The gif is followed by an emoji depicting a pair of raised hands.

“What…” Bucky glares at the screen, bewildered. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Pretty sure that means we have his blessing.” She taps out another message to check, though, for due diligence: “ _Bucky needs to know: Does that mean we have your blessing?_ ”

“ _You can have anything you want, as long as you’re both happy,_ ” comes the rapid reply. “ _I mean that._ ”

“Oh.” Darcy blinks at the screen. Her lip quivers.

“Sit back here,” Bucky says before the waterworks begin. He positions her phone a few inches above the bath water to angle it up the right way and preserve her modesty. Closing his eyes, he presses his lips to her throat like how this all started and taps to take the picture.

She checks the image, taps to edit and crop, then hits ‘send’. “You made me look good.”

“Didn’t exactly have to work for it. You woke up pretty enough to break hearts all on your own, doll.” His lips part and he nibbles along the sweet tendon there, blinking and glancing up when he hears another digital click. She turns the phone to show him the short gif she’s made of him exploring the taste of her damp skin, then sends that, too.

Clint replies again in emojis. A bow. An arrow. A pulsing heart.

“Aw, Hawk,” Bucky sighs and presses his forehead between Darcy’s shoulders.

“I take it you know what those mean, then?” Her hand finds its way to the spot over his ear and she finger-combs through the hair there, making him shudder.

“I do.” He leans into the touch, never one to miss an opportunity, especially now that he better understands what touch-starvation looks like in the mirror and can see its skin-thirsty twin in Darcy.

This is good.

For both of them.

“I’ll go off again, you keep that up,” he warns her, catching her hand and pressing his lips to the knuckles. “And we just refilled this thing. I’m meant to wash your hair, then we can play all you like.”

“All I like?” She throws a wicked grin over her shoulder.

“Mmhmm…” He’s seriously rethinking the wait when he’s forced to lean over her to grab the shampoo and the small water pitcher he brought along to wash and rinse around her stitches. His lips graze her shoulder again and he loses more time, losing himself in the sweet flavor of her bare skin.

“Not that I’m complaining,” —there’s a smile in her voice— “but the water will get cold.”

“Yeah.” He clears his throat and takes the pitcher he’s dropped in the water from her. The shampoo pump bottle is inside it. Gathering the shreds of what dignity he has left, Bucky sets to work wetting, lathering, and washing her hair while she moans and makes more of those happy kitten noises.

He can’t hardly blame her. In Wakanda—after Siberia, he’d had to wait a few weeks before Shuri and her team were ready to begin building his new Vibranium arm. He’d expected to be at the mercy of whatever medical personnel worked for the Wakanda Design Group, but instead, Steve and his new friends rallied around him. No one in scrubs or a lab coat were ever allowed within three rooms of him once Sam caught sight of Bucky flinching from one of the well-meaning nurses. Stevie and Clint helped him shower and shave. Sam taught him some tricks for choosing certain types of clothes so he could dress himself without help and then sat patiently, without offering assistance unless Bucky asked, while he learned how to dress himself, unbalanced and pissed off at everything and its mother for more than a week.

Clint… Clint held his hand on the worst nights, talking to him in the dark about mind control, how it fucked him up, how he understood what Bucky was going through—to an extent, that he had an ear in Clint if he needed someone to talk to who wasn’t constantly trying to fix him.

When faced with the choice of either cutting his hair to make it more manageable, or leaving it down until he had the new arm, Nataliya brushed and braided Bucky’s hair for him every day, without fail, just because he wanted to keep it long until he had both arms again and the choice of what to do with it was his alone. She accompanied him to the barber and even learned from the barber how to cut and style his hair herself so no strangers ever approached him with a blade while his mind and body healed.

Steve’s friends took care of him.

After the first cycle of lather and rinse, Bucky reads the back of the shampoo bottle and decides the ‘repeat’ is in order this once, since the lady’s been without a proper wash for a few days. The shampoo smells like citrus; lemon, lime, and something like those tangerines she tastes of.

The scent will linger in his mind for days.

When she’s as squeaky clean as can be, Bucky grabs the last big bath sheet and lays it out on the deck beside the tub to set her on, patting her dry while she sits quietly and hangs onto his shoulders for balance, watching him from beneath lashes dark as raven’s wings. He can tell her arm is rubbery and sore from the strain of half a week with stitches and not being able to stretch it. When she’s dry enough not to catch a chill, he taps the buttons for the stoppers and rises from the tub, whisking her up in his arms all in one motion. Her little squeak makes him laugh.

“Don’t worry, doll. I won’t drop ya,” he promises.

“It’s not the dropping that concerns me! It’s the unexpected ride! Holy shit, Barnes. I knew you were built like a tank, but I didn’t realize you had the strength of one, too!” She wriggles happily inside the terry cloth wrapping, letting out under her breath a disbelieving “wow” he’s not sure he’s meant to hear.

Bucky clears his throat. “Clint’s pretty stacked himself. He never…?” he can’t help but wonder.

“Oh, yeah.” Her cheeks pink up. “Back when…” She goes quiet for a moment and Bucky pauses in the door to the master bedroom. “When we first met. In New Mexico. He carried me up to the roof of the dealership one morning, up all those stairs out back. I was so sure he’d drop me, but he wasn’t even breathing heavy when he set me down beside the table he’d set up for breakfast while I was asleep.”

“Sounds romantic,” Bucky ventures.

She sighs and lays her head on his shoulder. “He’s been through a lot, Bucky. I don’t hold it against him that he doesn’t do that kind of stuff anymore.”

“Doesn’t? Or won’t?”

“You just ask all the tough questions, huh?” She grabs a fold of the blanket and brings it up to her face, ostensibly to dab at her skin, but more—he thinks—to hide behind while she gathers her thoughts and hopes he’ll change the subject.

So he does. Because he’d far prefer her open and smiling over quiet and closed off tighter than a clam.

“You, uh, don’t have a robe here, or in your suitcase, I noticed,” he tries, setting her on the end of the bed.

“No.” She shoves the hair out of her face. “I never really have. And then I got in the habit of wearing Clint’s hoodie when I needed something when Evie was born. It smelled like him and she always loved that, so I just … kept wearing it.” She shrugs.

“Well, um.” Bucky steps away to fetch the next best thing from his own closet. “Most of the robes that came with our rooms are in the wash by now, I imagine. I swear, we dirty up every towel in the house soon as they’re clean. This … ain’t exactly a luxury resort robe, but it’s better than sittin’ around naked while you pin and set your hair.”

“Pin and set…” She tilts her head, staring at him holding Clint’s hoodie for a few long moments. “Bucky, I don’t set my hair. It curls on its own. And there’s not much point trying to do anything with it here. The salt water’s going to do what it wants anyway, especially if Birdie gets her way and has one last trip to the beach this afternoon before we leave.”

“Still,” he insists, holding out the hoodie he knows smells plenty like both him and Clint. It’s what he’s got, it’s clean(ish), and there’s a small thrill that goes through him at seeing someone he cares about wearing his things. Nat and Steve have both borrowed this one. Sam, too. It gets around, but it’s real nice to see it on Darcy when she acquiesces and lets him slip it on over her shoulders. She swims in it a little, when she pulls it up her arms and the cuffs still dangle well past her fingers. With a deep breath for patience, he rolls up the sleeves out of habit, same as he’d do for Nat.

The way her legs look peeking from the bottom of it does something very different to him than when he sees it on Nat, though. Nat’s built like a, well, like a sister. Not that Nataliya ain’t pretty, but with her compact, sporty build, she puts him more in mind of Becca than one of those pretty warbird bunnies with legs for days, straddling a mortar.

Darcy’s got a figure like something out of his dreams, back in the days when he shared a command tent with six snoring assholes who passed around eight-pagers and pinup calendars like baseball cards over poker and lunch.

But here she is now, gathering up the two halves of the thing and clutching them tight across her middle.

“Darce?” Without thinking anything of their new familiarity, he runs a hand up her flank, tanned golden from a week of hard work and play in the Indian Ocean. “What’s wrong, doll?”

“What? Nothing.” She shakes her head and smiles, but it’s distant now when it wasn’t ten minutes ago when they were fooling around in the tub.

“Darce, this isn’t nothin’,” he points out, sliding a finger along the edge of the zipper over her crossed arms. “What’s got you feelin’ shy all of a sudden?”

“I haven’t done this…” She squirms.

“Since before the baby, yeah. You mentioned.” He knows it’s been a while, but expectations can’t have changed that much in just a few years. He’s pretty sure the act hasn’t changed much at all between men and women since he learned his way around the underside of a skirt back in the thirties.

“When we were in the tub, what happened…” She fidgets some more and won’t look him in the eye. Which is fine, if it makes her more comfortable. Just makes it a little harder to figure out where her head’s at. He’s starting to think maybe Clint’s trouble with communicating isn’t entirely _his_ problem. Darce has spent so much time holding back to avoid setting Clint off, he thinks, it seems like she’s struggling to figure out how to communicate _her_ needs, too.

“With my,” she gestures vaguely at her breasts. “That’s never happened before, I mean … when I’m not alone? My body’s changed a lot in the past two and a half years. In the tub, you couldn’t really see much of me, but here…”

Her teeth dig into her bottom lip and Bucky can’t help but brush a thumb over the little indentation it leaves to soothe the sting when she lets go.

“Darce…” His own lips twist in a wry smile. “I seen you dancin’ with the baby by the pool in a swimsuit not even a day ago, wiggling in that scrap of step-ins with the lil’ bitty skirt stretched across a backside t’could make a ripe peach jealous. Reminded me of the gal on a coaster the Howlies traded back and forth—the Busty Highball Girl. Nearly embarrassed myself right there by the pool, doll.”

“Wha…?” she breathes. “You were _watching_ me?”

“I do a lot a’that,” he admits. Not much point trying to put that cat back in the bag. “You’re a pretty lady with a pretty baby. A lot of fellas notice you when they think you’re not lookin’.”

“Staring isn’t noticing,” she argues.

“No, it ain’t, but not all stares are the bad kind, either. And what happened in the tub?” He brushes a thumb across her cheek bone. “That was all new to me, too, but it wasn’t a bad thing. I didn’t expect it, but that seems silly now I think about it. It ain’t like you can just flip a switch and they’re not gonna keep doin’ what they’re made for doin’, right? If it makes you uncomfortable, I don’t hafta ever touch you like that again, but…”

“What?” she demands, laying a hand over his on her cheek.

He scoots closer to kneel up between her bent knees. “I like touchin’ you, in all the ways you’ll let me. You’re a real looker, doll, ‘case you hadn’t noticed. And I know you been on your own a long time and we got a long ways to go to know each other better, but I _like_ givin’ you orgasms, Darce. I’d like to give you more of ‘em and see your pretty face next time, and get to know every beautiful inch of this new body you’re still learnin’ things about, too.”

“Oh.” Her hands flutter when he sets his own on her thighs, but eventually, she lays each fine-boned hand over his and parts her knees inviting him deeper into her space. “But … there are other things. My belly is soft and my thighs jiggle—well _more_ than they did before, and the stretch marks…”

“No different than my sergeant stripes—like battle scars; we both earned ‘em the hard way, right?”

Her lip quivers, like she’s not sure whether to laugh or cry when a “yeah” bursts forth with a watery smile.

He slides his hands up the long, bare expanse of her flanks, smoothing his fingers over the round fullness of her there at the widest point. She makes a meaty handful.

Bucky _loves_ it.

“I seen your belly, too. And I don’t know much about today’s beauty standards, but back in my day, curves like yours would’a made ya a contender for the kind’a Miss July a fella can’t forget. They don’t make dames like that these days, ‘cept you, doll. You’re like a real sweet slice’a home for this old soldier.”

She’s pulling in deep breaths and her color is rising so her breasts heave inside the hoodie. When she relaxes, he slides even closer, crowding her a little and slipping his hands beneath the hem to tug the halves of it apart. He’s close enough for her to realize he can’t see all of her at once, and maybe that sets her at ease.

He hopes so.

When the zippered halves slide open, laying over each breast with the sweet valley between exposed, he leans in to kiss her breastbone where the baby headbutted her not four nights ago. He knows she’s still tender there, so he’s gentle, feathering butterfly kisses from her bruised sternum down to the soft swell of her lower belly as he coaxes her to lean back and give him room to explore.

She’s beautiful like this, too, soft and maybe a little eager, even if she’s thinking too hard about those worries while he does his best to love on each of the parts she’s self-conscious about. With a soft sigh, she surrenders sweetly, letting him support her and lay her out like an offering.

She’s panting when his lips touch her hip bone.

She’s squirming when his teeth nip at her thigh.

She’s crying out when his tongue finds the sweet center of her.

She tastes like heaven. His cock stirs in anticipation. It really is a dream come true.

On his knees between her feet, he pulls her right up to the edge on the mattress to explore every delicate fold and sweet pink part of her. His gut clenches when she flexes the little muscles around his tongue, mimicking what she’ll do to his cock someday soon, he hopes.

He noses at her clit and breathes deep when her body responds, providing him enough slick to insert a finger up to the knuckle and wait to see what she thinks of the idea. While he waits and his cock leaks, bobbing against his belly, he laves her with his tongue, slaking a thirst for her that’s been burning since the first time Clint opened his mouth to extol this little beauty’s virtues. The taste of her pings an old, buried memory, a pretty dame with dark curls spread across the pillows, a skirt rucked up over her knees, and Bucky between them. He remembers the way she cried out, how she begged to have him inside her, even how he fumbled with the rubber, his first time wearing one with a ready gal.

Her name is lost to time, but the memory is a sweet one, and he has Darcy to thank for giving it back to him.

His cock remembers, too, like Pavlov’s dog, drooling for a treat.

“That good, doll?” he checks in with her again to be sure, stroking gently with that one searching fingertip.

“Uh huh,” she nods, head tipped back, hands buried in the covers. “S’so goood…” she drawls, pumping her hips to nudge at his lips.

“You can touch, sweetheart. Yourself or me—my head, my hair, wherever you want,” he says, then pulls back to dip the first and second fingers in his mouth, wetting them thoroughly before pressing back inside. Her hips come off the bed at the stretch or the touch of his fingers to that spongy spot behind her pubic bone—he’s not sure which, so he checks again, pressing his fingers apart and rotating them to make just a bit more room to move.

When she cries out, it’s the sweetest music to his ears.

“Bucky!” She tugs at his hair, pushing his face even deeper into her sex. He noses at her clit, circling it, his tongue doing the same on the softest parts of her while he gathers up enough slick to press in a third finger.

When she comes, she damn near crushes him with her thighs.

Bucky could die happy right here, let it be known, brought down not by the enemy, or even friendly fire, but by a soft pair of thighs with some weight behind them, and his face buried in the finest china this old Brooklyn boy’s enjoyed since he learned how to chase a skirt. He comes in a torrent, untouched, and it’s … Christ, one of the best he’s ever had.

Bucky _loves_ it here.

His only regret is that they can’t stay.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They dress slowly, taking their time, enjoying the luxury of getting distracted and pulling each other back to bed time and again. With every passing hour, Darcy’s grown less self-conscious about Bucky showing his appreciation for her shapely backside and full … assets. She’s so much more than that, but she has no idea what a brilliant, hardworking, beautiful woman she is, either. He sees it. He knows. Somebody ought’a be telling her that every minute of the day, and maybe the right words don’t come to him so easy now as they once might’ve, so he’ll show her with every kiss, every caress, every lingering gaze. 
> 
> He’s exactly where he wants to be. And with whom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra, super thanks to the group of superstars who are helping out with the editing on this beast of a fic: Zephrbabe, phoenix_173, ibelieveinturtles, and chocolategate. 
> 
> My apologies for the delay in posting this chapter. I had a crisis of “holy-shit-they-hate-the-smut-and-I-wrote-three-days-of-this-shit-what-was-I-thinking-everything-is-terrible” over nothing last week because THANKS, ANXIETY, THAT IS SUPER HELPFUL, and I needed a few days to work up the nerve to post the last of the three smuts. Which I am posting. Today. Right now. *breathes deep* Now, who’s down for some more body positivity, Bucky Barnes-style? 
> 
> Suggested listening (includes songs mentioned in this chapter): “Crazy In Love” by Beyonce, “One, Two Step (feat. Missy Elliot” by Ciara

They dress slowly, taking their time, enjoying the luxury of getting distracted and pulling each other back to bed time and again. With every passing hour, Darcy’s grown less self-conscious about Bucky showing his appreciation for her shapely backside and full … assets. She’s so much more than that, but she has no idea what a brilliant, hardworking, beautiful woman she is, either. He sees it. He knows. Somebody ought’a be telling her that every minute of the day, and maybe the right words don’t come to him so easy now as they once might’ve, so he’ll show her with every kiss, every caress, every lingering gaze.

He’s exactly where he wants to be. And with whom.

And, honestly, he can’t remember the last time he’s had such fun, staying in bed all morning to laugh and play some good old slap and tickle. Or if he ever has, come to think of it.

Darcy blooms under his attention and he swells with pride.

From her packed suitcase, she fetches the miniest damned denim skirt he ever saw and pulls it up over her naked hips. If it covers more than the skirt she wears over her swimsuit, he’ll eat Hawk’s bow. It’s ragged at the bottom, one of those intentionally distressed denim affairs that looks like it’s a little more worn and old, and maybe seen some distress that didn’t come straight from the factory. If he had to guess, this is an old favorite, something she slips on like Clint’s hoodie when she needs a little of her own old home for comfort.

“No step-ins?” he checks, chuckling to himself when she laughs at his outdated reference to ladies’ drawers.

“I’ve got a little … beard burn,” she admits, her face and neck flushing pink. “Panties would be uncomfortable right now.”

“Aw, doll…” He grabs her around the waist from behind and hoists her up with a twist to set her rear end on the counter. “You should let me check that for you, can never be too careful. Safety first an’ all.” He nods very seriously, inhaling sharply when she parts her knees and lets the hoodie fall open, displaying all of her but the little strip he’d generously call covered by the skirt. The hoodie sleeves fall down her shoulders. Christ, what a picture she makes when he kneels on the tile floor and brings his lips to the soft, reddened center of her, placing gentle kisses to all the spots he’s been too rough on. Careful to keep his scruff from dragging across her delicate skin, he laps at her with his tongue like a cat until she soaks his tongue with honey and tries to pull him in close for more.

Bucky will never get tired of this. If there’s a taste sweeter than freedom, it’s this pussy.

God _damn_ , he loves her pussy.

Darcy’s honeypot is a real special kind of treat, too. He appreciates how she’s all natural here, even takes a moment for himself to pet at the soft down of dark hair covering her mound with his flesh fingers. He’ll never get tired of the feel of soft things now he has them in his life again, and a woman is the softest yet.

God in Heaven, please strike him dead the moment he ever fails to appreciate this or takes it for granted like he had in his first life.

She’s right, though, he takes notice—she’s a bit raw from his rough and ready attention, where he meant to worship and cosset.

“You gonna pet it all day or kiss it and make it better?” she tweaks him, hooking a leg over his shoulder to gather him in close.

“Lil’ bit a’both,” he promises, getting to work. Her juices cover his chin as her other leg hooks over his opposite shoulder. He’s more careful this time not to rub her raw with his scruff, prying her open with his thumbs, driving her crazy with the tip of his tongue and fingertips. He hums in satisfaction when her legs quake and her pussy quivers with oncoming tremors. She jerks and tenses when he digs in and pushes his middle fingers against that spot up real high. (He’s sure it’s got some kinda name like that G-spot business that sits lower behind her pubic bone, but he’ll be fucked if he knows what it is). He grins when she gushes a flood of slick honey down his knuckles, chin, and throat with this first orgasm.

 _Good Christ,_ he thinks, closing his eyes, _it’s like he’s been baptized in it._ Not that he minds, Lord, it’s like winning the grand prize at the fair.

Then she surprises him again, half-reclining against the mirror and reaching up to roll her nipples gently, pushing herself over the edge a second time. Another flood of her juices soak him and he can’t resist burying his face in her perfumed flesh, rubbing the dark, secret scent of her across his cheeks. She’ll be sore, but, dammit, he’ll make it up to her. It’s just … she’s so pretty here. So pretty and pink, and he has to bury his face in her soft center and worship every fold with the intensity and focus each delicate part deserves.

When he glances up from his self-assigned duty, face glistening with her juices, little rivulets of milk are running down her tits and belly, some of it pooling in her navel.

Milk and honey, she is; comfort and sweetness.

He can’t get enough.

After he’s thoroughly licked her clean and—if he’s being honest here—come in his own shorts again without so much as a hand on his dick, they agree the hoodie needs to go. It’s in desperate need of a wash. While they’re sorting themselves out to head over to the hospitality villa for a late brunch with the team, he sponges her clean again, carefully applying to her reddened skin the healing balm that’s supposed to go on her stitches. He’s used the stuff before, so he knows it’s safe enough to use anywhere. He takes his time, only winding them both up again for another round when her phone rings.

She twists and attempts to stretch out to grab it, presenting an irresistible target to Bucky’s exploring fingers. She hisses in discomfort when her stitches tug, though, and he sits back on his heels. After a quick readjustment, she’s got the phone and Bucky’s target looks more irresistible than ever, the way she’s all sprawled across the counter just so. His fingers are still covered in the balm, he considers, and … it _is_ safe to use everywhere, so he takes the opportunity she’s presenting to torture her with a pair of fingers, petting her plump pussylips like a soft kitten while she checks the ID of the caller.

“It’s Clint,” she says, breathless and squirmy. One of her hands grips at the edge of the counter to keep her from going all the way over.

“Answer it,” Bucky orders, watching her from beneath hooded eyes as he lifts her top leg, exposing her to the cool ocean breeze to tickle her with a third finger right along her soaking wet seam.

She tenses and glances over her shoulder.

“Only if you want to,” he amends, slowing his strokes and giving her room to decide by retreating, sitting back on his heels to await her decision. (He doesn’t stop touching her completely, but, Christ, she’d be chafed for days at the rate he’s rubbing her off this morning, if not for the balm, so he trails his wet fingers along the inside of her thigh.) “I ain’t here to push or make ya uncomfortable, doll, just havin’ a little fun and makin’ ya feel good.”

“Hi,” she takes the call, eyes on Bucky over her shoulder as she helpfully lifts her top knee to give him unfettered access while she listens to Clint for a minute. “Fine—” She pants when Bucky resumes, tracing that wet seam with nothing more than the tip of his middle finger. The sweet curve of her back deepens to present herself to him for closer inspection. “We’re fine here. Everything is … fine.”

“Tell him what you’re doin’, if you want, doll,” Bucky reminds her, idly dipping that one finger deeper and prying her lips apart—not far, but enough she’ll feel the stretch and maybe even she’ll flutter around the digit in a subtle bid for more.

“Just—” She pants again. “Getting ready to go out for brunch. With Bucky. And the others. You’ll be there?” She’s almost whimpering by the time the question slips out of her mouth.

He dips the finger in deep now, smearing more of the healing balm everywhere he can reach and prying her open wider to admire the pretty, wrecked picture she makes all sprawled out and open for him, showing off several hours of his finest work. Really, it’s important he doesn’t miss any spots, but he loves that he can do this—stretch her so she’ll feel it for hours. She’s confessed, during one of their earlier rounds between the bed and the bathroom, how good a hard stretch feels, so he curls his fingers into his fist and spreads her pussy lips open to rub the balm in with the breadth of his knuckles, giving her the sweet-hurt stretch she’s told him she loves most.

“Oh, you know Bucky,” she fairly groans, clenching tight around his first two knuckles as he massages more of the cream into her skin. “He found some of that healing balm Shuri sent with Maret. I’m getting the full Bucky Barnes mother hen treatment.” She gives up and just lays down, stretching across the length of the empty counter space with her knees pressed together to the side on the countertop. The position plumps her pussy from his point of view and makes the fit even tighter as he slips his knuckles out and twists back in with a single finger, doing his level best to massage in deep another dollop he adds of the cream and tries to hit that spot that makes her scream. He’s almost got it.

“That’s fine, wonderful.” Her eyes roll up and lashes flutter. Her pussy tightens around his finger like a vise and the muscles inside her quiver on the precipice of more. “We’ll see you then,” she whispers as the line goes dead and she scrabbles at the edge of the counter for purchase while another orgasm sweeps over her and the breath escapes her in a shrill, whistling scream. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…” she chants and pants so pretty.

“Never met a gal comes like you do, doll. It’s a sight to see, honey, I mean a sight to see.” Gently, he withdraws his fingers, giving her one last swirl and pat to wipe off the remaining cream. That little touch alone is enough to set off an aftershock. She lays there and continues to pant through it, leaking milk all over the counter and the hoodie she still hasn’t managed to slip out of yet.

“I’ll have to clean up again,” she huffs, clenching and twitching, and eying him like a juicy T-bone.

“Mm… My job, I think, since I made another mess a’you.” He’s even more careful this time, sensing she’s at the point of almost too sensitive to enjoy much more attention anywhere at all.

“What about you?” she whispers when he wrings and rinses the washcloth, and washes the spent milk from her belly, chest and sides.

He peels her out of the hoodie, pressing a kiss in passing to the underside of each top-heavy breast. He lingers, pressing his face between them, and chuckles. “Gotta admit, sweetheart, you put me through my paces this mornin’, too. Don’t think I ever came untouched in my shorts before, much less half a dozen times. These drawers a’mine are ruined.” he says with a wry smile.

“I’ll make it up to you.” She hooks her fingers in the waistband of his shorts and tugs him close for a kiss.

“I didn’t do it for a favor owed, doll. I liked it. _Like_ it. A lot.” Only belatedly does he think of the musky taste of her smeared all over his face, but she doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, she nuzzles at him, rubbing her cheek along his like she wants him to cover her in both their earthy scents.

He’s happy to oblige, rubbing her soft cheek with his scruff to leave his mark, but then the little minx squeezes her hand into the fly of his shorts, and his cock, the traitor, twitches and fills like it’s ready to be put back in the game, coach.

And, really, who is Bucky to say no to a gameday player like that?

He don’t know what possesses him to try to stand, leaning against the counter, while she gives him a good, old fashioned hand shandy, but Bucky ain’t real mad about it. He feels like he’s stepped on a live wire and he’s more worried about his dignity than anything else when he comes in her hot, little hand, and she brings it to her mouth to lick it clean. Swear to Christ, he whimpers and staggers, forced to take a knee on the floor again to catch his breath.

She’s wrecked him on her own in a few minutes when it’s taken him hours to bring her near to the same state.

Sweet fuck, what a woman.

It’s another beautiful day in paradise, he thinks, as she slides off the counter to wash her hands and helps herself to one of his button down shirts to tie up at her waist over that excuse for a skirt.

_With no goddamn panties._

She’s gonna be the death of him.

He can’t wait to see what she does next.

She takes great pleasure in driving him to distraction, as it turns out, dancing around the master suite to something she calls Queen Bay on her phone as she finishes packing her duffel and Evie’s little, purple pilotcase.

Bent over the shapeless bag on the floor, she’s shaking her ass and rifling through her small hoard of cosmetics, belting out, “ _Got me lookin’ so crazy in love...! Uh oh, uh oh, uh oh, uh oh..._ ”

Every time she shifts her feet, she shakes her sweet ass again, and Bucky can _feel_ his brain cells dying.

He’s a sniper. He’s _known_ for his focus.

He can’t _not_ look!

She’s got one hundred percent of his undivided attention as the song switches to something new and she wiggles right on across the floor, chanting along to something real catchy…

“ _This beat is ... automatic, supersonic, hypnotic, funky fresh, work my body, so melodic, this beat rolls right through my chest… Everybody, ma, and papi, came to party. Grab somebody, work ya body, work ya body._ _Let me see you 1, 2 step…_ ”

She twirls past him with a tube of something in hand and pauses to pull him close, leading him in a series of steps and little hip shakes that don’t make a lick of sense, but she seems so pleased with them both, he can’t help but smile and follow where she directs him. A gentle hand on his elbow or a little hip-check sends him in whatever she’s deemed is the proper direction. It’s not real complicated, just an easy shuffle along to the beat with their bodies almost indecently close when she directs him to thrust against her, but the way her face lights up when he goes the right way makes Bucky feel like he’s looking directly into the sun.

It’s like magic.

She chants along to the spoken word parts of the lyrics and sings sweetly to the rest, like she does it all the time as a hobby.

Now they been here a week, but Bucky can’t think of another single time she’s just sung out like this.

Sure, there’d been the little impromptu dance party by the pool with Birdie, but nothing like this, with her whole heart and body invested in her enjoyment of the music. Her feet switch from heel to toe, back and forth, in a fancy little flourish and her cheek dimples with her pleasure as she keeps time to the music in a little step she shows him that she calls a vine.

This must be what it’s like to feel high, he thinks.

(Another memory floats gently to the surface: replacing Stevie’s asthma cigarettes with the reefer that worked ten times better up on the roof when his best pal’s asthma got real bad one spring day. The air in Brooklyn was tinted almost yellow all the way down to Sheepshead Bay the whole week and the air on the roof was just a little bit cleaner. Stoned outta their heads for hours, Stevie’s ma finally got curious and came looking. She found ‘em up there well after midnight, gazing up at where they supposed the stars oughta be. Then Stevie’s blood sugar dropped real low when he stood and nearly took both of ‘em over the side, if not for Bucky’s grip like glue on the parapet holding him fast.)

This is definitely what it’s like to feel high, he decides. Like falling without a net.

It’s such a pure pleasure to watch her wiggle and step and shimmy like no one is watching.

When she spins him out and carries on her way to the bathroom to put her face on with a little extra spring in her step and swing in her hips, Bucky wonders how she’d feel about learning to dance the way they did in the dance halls back in Brooklyn.

Do they still call it swing?

He’d love to spin her properly around a dance floor some time, teach her some real slick moves, and see her light up just the same way when she executes a showy turn or perfect figure. Damn, she’d be somethin’ in a pair of T-straps and high-waist shorts with them little sailor buttons on the sides. (He always loved the sailor-fly shorts.)

Real furtive-like, while she’s got her eyes on herself in the mirror, he pulls up the browser on his phone to find and download a playlist of the top fifty electro swing songs, whatever in hell that is. Modern swing music, he hopes. It’s the best he can manage on his phone without falling down the rabbit hole of the internet to look up old music charts and build his own personal playlist from scratch and patchwork memories, but it’ll do for now. He’s only gonna listen to it a bit down to the beach later, maybe excuse himself to the bathhouse to practice a few of his old moves. After, he thinks, he’ll he ask her take a turn around the floor with him at brunch.

Or maybe on the beach would be better, with his phone playing it’s tinny music low and close, with none of their friends standing around gawping like a modern pack of Howlies with nothing better to do.

“Bucky?” Her head pops around the doorframe. “You said you had sisters… Does that mean you can braid hair?”

Now this… This is one of those skills Bucky knows he has that really shines. And he’s got Stevie to thank for this one.

“I can, but no thanks to my sisters. They pinned their hair up every night,” he says, tugging whatever shirt comes to hand on over his head and making his way to the dressing room where Darcy’s sitting before the mirror on a low bench. “Stevie learned from some of the chorus girls on the USO tour and showed me on Peg’s hair when Medical ordered her to stand down for two weeks because of a busted wing. I swear… That dame got in as many scrapes as Stevie, some days.”

He walks around behind her until their faces are reflected back, one above the other in the mirror.

“And during the war,” he goes on, laying his cybernetic hand on her shoulder and moving aside her hair with his free hand to massage the nape of her neck, “being able to help a dame pin her hair back up after you’d pulled out a few pins in the back hallway at a public house could save a fella a good tongue-lashing. Which meant more time for kissin’, if you played your cards right,” he added with a wink.

“I tried to do it myself,” Darcy said, rolling her head to the side to make room for him to rub higher up the tendons at the back. “But every time I lift my arm to gather the hair on top, my stitches pull.”

“Mm…” Bucky purses his lips and accepts the offered brush from her hand. He looks over her hair and grabs up a section to pull the brush through, testing the thickness to see what’s he’s got to work with now that it’s mostly air-dried. “You want a ponytail braid, or one a’those French-style ones like Nataliya prefers, or somethin’ else?”

“I’ve got options?” Her sunshine smile makes another appearance.

“Sure, doll. I seen Nataliya watchin’ some fancy braid tutorials on the computer. You know where to find those? The serum makes it pretty easy for me to copy anything I’ve seen once. Pick a shorter one and we’ll see what’s what once we’ve watched it through.”

Smiling, she grabs her phone from the charging station on the vanity and pulls up that YouTube business, eventually settling on a video that reads, “5 Quick Braids Inspired by Thor and his Viking Space Friends”. She’s grinning at the phone when she sets it back far enough for them to view together.

A few minutes later, Bucky’s got a good idea of the sort of thing she likes—artfully messy braids that pull her hair back from her face and up off her neck, with a few curls hanging around her ears and shoulders to draw attention to the detail of the braids. It’s a kind of low gibson like his ma wore, but made of about a dozen small braids. With enough pins, he thinks he does an okay job recreating a simple version of it. He even fetches Steve’s fancy beard oil from his room to smooth the long, curling tendrils he’s left dancing around her ears and temples. With a few quick motions, he’s smoothed and finger-curled them all, including the one long one in the back. It draws the eye right to the dip between her shoulder blades and shows off the wide expanse of tanned skin between her swimsuit straps. He only regrets a little that the golden swatch of skin will disappear from view when she shrugs his shirt back on.

Her eyes meet his in the mirror and she glances away, tucking one of the long tendrils behind her ear, but the pink riding high on her cheeks is unmistakable.

She’s real pretty when she blushes, he thinks. Then he wonders if she blushes _everywhere_ just so and how long it’s polite to wait before he can get her out of that little skirt again to find out for himself.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Evelyn Natalie Barton.” 
> 
> The baby’s standing in the cold room at the hospitality villa, holding a plate the size of a serving platter. It’s covered with a mountain of complimentary chocolates, cookies, and bright macarons, and her little cheeks are stuffed with more chocolate. She looks like a plump, blonde chipmunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUCK YEAH, PROMPT #2!!! Interdimensional Summer! It only took me 12 chapters to get to the second prompt! Bahahahahaha...
> 
> Evie's little chocolate feast in the [cold room](https://www.soneva.com/soneva-jani/dining/the-gathering/so-cool/) in this chapter is inspired by So Cool at Soneva Jani Luxury Resort in the Maldives, the location that inspired the hotel in this story. (A link to photos of Soneva Jani used for inspiration can be found in the notes on the first chapter of this story. I post inspiration pics used with each chapter update on tumblr, too.)
> 
> Beta'd by: Zephrbabe & Nix

“Evelyn Natalie Barton.”

The baby’s standing in the cold room at the hospitality villa, holding a plate the size of a serving platter. It’s covered with a mountain of complimentary chocolates, cookies, and bright macarons, and her little cheeks are stuffed with more chocolate. She looks like a plump, blonde chipmunk.

Bucky has to turn away so Evie doesn’t see him choking back laughter.

“Where is Kate?” her ma demands.

Evie lets go of one side of the massive plate to point through the cold room to the smoothie bar next door and nearly loses the whole shebang to the floor, but Darcy’s got the reflexes of a cat. The plate is up high out of the way before Bucky and Evie can blink and Darcy’s marching to the connecting door to tear the hide off an unsuspecting, teenaged archer. Before the baby thinks to try to swallow the mouthful of candies she’s gnawing her way through, Bucky grabs a paper napkin from the stack by the clean plates and holds it out in his hand. He can smell the coffee in those chocolates. She’ll be wired for hours if he lets her finish them.

“Spit it out, young lady,” he orders.

And damned if the little shit doesn’t yank the napkin away, spit the half-chewed candy right in his palm, then wipe her mouth with the napkin.

He looks down at his hand full of melting, chewed chocolates and up at the baby, narrowing his eyes at her.

Bucky does not have the words for this occasion that won’t turn the air blue.

With a dainty dab, Evie swipes at the chocolate smears on her face, making them worse, burps for good measure, then hands the napkin back, smacking it down on top of the chewed candy. Melted chocolate squishes between his fingers. A slow smile spreads on Evie’s smug little face.

She knows exactly what she’s done.

They stare at each other without blinking.

“Oh, Evie… What have you done now?” Darcy groans, hurrying back into the room, every bit as done as Bucky is with brunch before it begins.

“Ducky say spit it out.” The little bird shrugs innocently for her ma and wipes her hands against each other, pausing to carefully consider whether it’s worth trying to wipe them on her blouse with her ma watching.

“I’ll be more specific next time,” he mutters, rising to search the room for a trash can. He dumps the chewed remains in a bin behind the door, gives his hands a quick scrub with a napkin, and scoops up the baby, looking around for somewhere to clean him and Evie up. Just as he spots the sign for the family restroom on this level, the work tablet in Darcy’s beach tote dings with the tone for an incoming video conference call.

“You get that.” Bucky pecks her on the lips, thrilling with pleasure when she turns her face up automatically, as if expecting the kiss. “I’ll take care of this.” He holds the baby out at arm’s length so she can’t smear chocolate anywhere else. Darcy’s laughing as he walks away.

At least Wanda and Kate are waiting near the family restroom for him, looking contrite.

“I’m so sorry, James,” Wanda apologizes first, collecting Evie from his outstretched hands. “We should have realized she’d sneak off when we split up to grab a table and place our drink orders. She’s been asking about going to the cold room for dessert all morning.”

Right on her heels, Katie is swearing, “She was right there, honestly, and then she was just gone! That kid never stays where she’s put. You know I caught her trying to get into the vents at Nat’s place one time? Somebody oughta put a bell and a collar on her.”

“Kate!” Wanda hisses, but she’s laughing.

“That’s kid’s all Barton.” Kate crosses her arms, glaring at the toddler who’s been transferred to Wanda’s arms.

“Onee half-Darton,” Evie corrects the teen as Wanda dodges sticky fingers. “Halfa Mommy, too.”

“We’ll be right back,” Wanda promises.

As they disappear inside the restroom, Bucky catches sight of Evie poking her tongue out at Kate, but he knows them both well enough by now that he’s sure they’ll have made up by the time they come back out.

“Hey,” a familiar voice says behind him.

Bucky spins around to find Clint lookin’ good enough to eat in a blue button down and his favorite cutoff denims, like he’s just come in off the beach. He’s got his hands shoved in his back pockets and he looks like a summer ad for Calvin Klein and American-made cotton all rolled into one.

There’s no sign of Darcy anywhere. They must have just missed each other.

“Hey.” Bucky wants to say something, but isn’t sure what. (And saying nothing isn’t an option. That’s how they all got in this mess in the first place.)

“I’m sorry,” they say together. And smile.

“I was pretty hard on you,” Bucky begins, closing the distance between them. “It’s not like you got a monopoly on bein’ fucked up.”

At the same time, Clint blurts out, “I don’t wanna lose you, too. I’ll do better; I‘ll try. I’ll _keep_ trying.”

“Hawk.” Bucky’s heart melts when Clint shifts his weight, dragging his bare toes across the wood floor in an unaccustomed show of nerves, eyes trained on the wood grain dusted with beach sand. He’s wrapping his arms around Clint before he second guesses his decision. It’s the right one. He knows it (even if he realizes a split second too late he really should have washed the rest of the chocolate off his hands before hugging his best fella). He knows if he drums up the same fit of spite from earlier, he could accidentally run Clint off, especially now, if Clint thinks Darcy’s got someone reliable in her life to fill in the gaps he’s made with his absence. He knows how Clint’s mind works. It’s not that big a leap.

He needs to keep him here, with them, show him forgiveness can be earned just as well up close as from a distance, no matter how good he sees.

“I’m sorry, Hawk.” Bucky noses at Clint’s ear.

“Me, too, Buckeroo.” Clint’s arms close around him carefully and it’s so good to be held the way Hawk does, as if he’s gonna support Bucky’s weight entirely on his own. Neither of them are really aware for a few moments that this is their first embrace in public. Half the _team_ doesn’t even know for sure they’re together, but when Bucky realizes what they’ve done, he can’t be fucked to care much what anybody else thinks, so long as Clint’s come back to stay.

“I’m yours, long as you’ll have me,” Bucky promises, ignoring the groans from some of their teammates as money definitely exchanges hands behind his back.

These assholes: so predictable.

Sam’s mom’s delighted laughter makes up for it. He hopes she cleaned house, the way she always bets big.

“I’ll always want you.” Clint’s whisper is nearly lost in the sudden uptick of noise: dishes clattering, silverware being sorted, Katie and Wanda chattering with the baby, striking a deal with her that she can have one piece of chocolate if she drinks a whole fruit smoothie.

It's all so normal, like Bucky's life ain't just been turned on its ear by a warm armful of his fella, right out here in the open where everyone can see. But just like that, it’s back to business, as if Clint and Bucky aren’t gonna be all the team gossips about the rest of the day. It’s nice, he thinks, predictable. Maggie is telling Cassie quietly to hold off on her congratulations until Clint and Bucky are done making up, and Lang’s standing there with his mouth open, catching flies. Nataliya looks smug.

Bucky would laugh, but he’s got more important things to do with his mouth.

“Same goes, Blondie,” Bucky says, muffled by Clint’s throat. It starts with a kiss beneath his jaw. They try not to get carried away, but there’s something cathartic in kissing to make up, especially now everyone knows.

Bucky lays one on him and doesn’t let up until the whistling and catcalling starts.

“You done runnin’?” Bucky asks, pressing their foreheads and noses together.

“Yeah, yeah. I'm trying, Buck, I swear. In fact,” Clint pauses, inhaling deep and letting it go, “while I was out, I made a call. Shuri’s head of medical research, Mara, put me in touch with a therapist they work with who specializes in combat trauma. Not one of the team shrinks. Somebody just for me.”

“Yeah?” Bucky tries not to sound as surprised as he feels because, damn, that is not what he expected. Clint’s talking to a shrink without being dragged to their office? “How you feelin’ about that?” Bucky asks.

“Just finished my first double session by video conference on the beach.” Clint buries his face in Bucky’s shoulder and Bucky’s hands move on autopilot, cupping the back of Clint’s neck.

Fuck, he’s proud of him.

“There are worse ways to get the help I need.” Clint’s sniffle into Bucky’s collar sounds watery, but not bad. Not bad at all. There’s lightness in his words and the tension he’s held across his shoulders and back for months is all but gone.

“Proud a’you, Hawk.” Bucky combs his fingers through the hair at the nape of Clint’s neck. “You done good.”

“Swear I’m tryin’.” Clint has one last, watery sniffle into Bucky’s shoulder and backs up. Just in time, too, as a certain lil’ blonde chipmunk appears at knee level, hugging them with one arm for each knee.

“Hi, Daddy,” she chirps, looking a lot less chocolatey than the last time Bucky saw her. “I spit a choc-wate on Ducky.”

“You did?” Clint raises one eyebrow, looking down at his little devil in disguise.

“I apowogize.” She beams at the adults.

“No, you didn’t,” Bucky points out before Clint can praise his tiny demon for her show of manners.

“I dust did!” she says, slapping her hands on her waist in indignation as her daddy lifts and sets her on his hip.

“Oh, you mean you’re apologizing now?” Bucky mimics her pose, hands on hips, too.

“Jes!” She nods vigorously and her little pigtails bob wildly.

“Apology accepted.” Bucky opens his arms and Evie leaps into them.

“I wuv you, Ducky.”

Oh.

_Oh._

So _this_ is what that feels like.

Clint’s smiling when Bucky gently cups the back of her head and whispers, “I love you, too, Birdie.”

He’s still hugging her tight when Wanda clears her throat. “Her smoothie is ready, and some scrambled eggs—”

“Wif bacoms and yewwow sauce.” Evie wiggles happily in his arms, always eager to eat, their little hobbit baby.

The team is gathering at a trio of tables when Darcy reappears with her tablet dangling from a lax arm. Her eyes are bright and a little teary. She pauses behind Clint and waits for Bucky to acknowledge her so she’s sure Clint knows someone is behind him as she stuffs the tablet back in her tote. Then she leans over the back of his chair, and kisses his cheek, wrapping an arm across the front of his shoulders.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

His eyes drift closed and Clint leans back into her touch. “I take it you spoke to Shuri?”

“She just called.”

“Surprise?” Clint’s grinning when Darcy lets him go and comes around to stand in front of him. “Good surprise, though, right?” he checks.

“One of the best.” She darts forward to kiss his cheek again, then retreats, taking the seat Bucky pulls out to put her at the head of the table beside Evie’s booster chair between him and Clint. “I worried we wouldn’t be able to go back for _months_. Best surprise.” She shimmies happily in her seat with a delighted grin for Hawk, but Bucky’s confused.

_Go back?_

Bucky thought the surprise was Clint going to therapy. Not that Shuri had any reason to call and inform Darcy of that, but…

_Go back where?_

Bucky lays a hand over hers when she sets them on the table to steady herself. “Darce? Back where?”

“The healing place, Alfheim, the dimension where Evie was born.” Her smile turns dreamy around the edges, like she’s remembering something fondly. “When we came back here without Jane, it was with the understanding that we couldn’t go back this time. For security reasons, the Einstein-Rosen Bridge will only open from Alfheim. And you must be invited to return. We’ve had no way to make the call to Jane to open the portal on her end until now.”

“A few days ago, I called in a favor from a friend who has a contact with an open invitation to Alfheim.”

“Sif.” Darcy’s grinning now. “She’s kept in touch with Coulson since he took over the agency, even while he was still underground. Thor and Sif have been looking for entry to Wakanda for years to establish a trade agreement and acquire vibranium. It’s the largest source of raw Vibranium ore in all of Yggdrasil,” she says, dropping her voice to a whisper. “In exchange for access to trade with Wakanda, Shuri requested and received an open invitation for interdimensional travel between Wakanda and Alfheim, and invented a device that allows us to contact Jane to open the portal when we need it to go home. The Light Elves, after many reassurances from Thor and Sif, have agreed to establish a two-way portal to Wakanda, as well.”

“We do home?” The baby’s eyes are shining bright now, too. At Darcy’s nod, Evie tosses down her fork, throws back her head, and wails. “For! I wanna see Unca For! Aunt Dane! I wanna do home _NOW_!”

“We will soon,” Darcy shushes the baby, glancing around nervously, like she’s afraid someone is going to tell her to shut that kid up. And across the restaurant, sure enough, there’s a guy who starts glaring daggers almost immediately.

Let ‘im try, Bucky thinks with a growl, plucking the baby from her booster to plop down in his lap.

No tantrum’s gonna scare him off and nobody better say shit to a fella looking like him holding a wailing baby. He tuts and bounces his leg, and Evie lays against his shoulder, sobbing piteously for her Uncle Thor and begging to go home now.

“Fwease, we do home, Ducky?” she cries and chuffs, sniffling into his neck.

Running a hand in soothing circles on her back, Bucky rides it out and lets her cry while Clint hangs onto Darcy’s hand to keep her from intervening to take Evie outside. She don’t have to fix every sniffle and upset here. And people who get upset at babies cryin’ really oughta not go out in public at all or participate in a society where kids exist, Bucky thinks viciously, like the jerks who gripe about babies cryin’ never had a tantrum on the floor of Macy’s like every other overtired brat who just wanted to go home.

A few minutes later, she’s calmed enough to lay across his and Nataliya’s laps on the bench seat, morosely picking at little bits of this and that from their plates to stuff in her mouth when she thinks no one is looking. Somehow, Nataliya convinces her to try a piece of avocado and Evie ends up glaring at everyone like she’s been betrayed with avocado mash dribbling out of her mouth while they snort with laughter and try to keep their voices down.

“Don’t wike awocado,” she fusses when Steve leans over the back of their seat with a fresh napkin dipped in water to swipe her face clean.

“No more avocado for you,” Bucky promises, handing her the small, lidded cup full of avocado-watermelon smoothie she’s been sipping from since they sat down to eat. He winks at Darcy and she relaxes against Clint’s shoulder where he’s hauled her close to keep her steady and calm while Bucky diffuses Evie’s tantrum.

“When we do ‘ome?” Evie demands between sips of smoothie, curling up against Bucky like he’d never betray her like her Aunt Nat.

Darcy glances at Clint, then back at Evie and Bucky. “MJ and Ned have to make a few more calls to rearrange our schedule to make room for the time slip, and I’ll have to talk to Daddy’s team about what to expect, but if everyone agrees, we’ll leave later today on a ship to take us to the location of the portal. We’ll leave Midgard from there. The trip to the portal would take a few days on this side, and maybe a few more on the other, so about a week til we get home to the village on Alfheim.”

Evie sucks in a sharp breath.

“But,” Darcy holds up a finger, “If Daddy’s team can’t do it right now or there are other conflicts preventing them from going, Aunt Sif will come and take you home for the summer, if you like.”

Evie thinks on that for a minute, pinching and letting go of a fold in Bucky’s T-shirt while she turns all the new information over in her little head.

“Wifout Daddy and Ducky?” she finally asks to be sure.

“Yeah, honey,” Darcy is forced to reply. “If the team can’t go, that means Daddy and Ducky— _Bucky_ would stay here, too.”

“I stay wif Daddy and Ducky,” the baby decides.

“Alright…” Darcy glances from Bucky to Clint.

“The discussion we need to have is probably very, extremely classified,” Clint signs, but Darcy is already nodding, pulling out her tablet to send off a flurry of texts. “A private room on the ship would be best,” he whispers.

“My team has already been briefed. I’ll ask Peter to watch Evie and Cassie after we board, if that’s alright with you, Maggie?” Darcy asks as a group text pings on all of their phones simultaneously with meeting details. Maggie nods and that’s that.

They’ll talk after brunch.

About cruising to another dimension.

_This afternoon._

Sometimes, Bucky thinks, he honestly can’t believe this is his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still with me? ;-) We’re headed to Alfheim!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their meeting falls by the wayside. 
> 
> The ship from Wakanda is fucking HUGE, and while Clint and Bucky spend the afternoon casing the place for security, defensible positions, and weak points, Darcy is pulled away at first to greet the flight crew. She spends the day attending meetings with the captain and his operations crew, reviewing diplomatic process and procedures for dealing with the Light Elves. A meeting with the engineering and science teams follow to discuss their goals and needs once they reach their destination. Fortunately, Darcy and Shuri were thorough in their preparation, drafting the briefing packet months earlier when the idea for a diplomatic and scientific expedition to Alfheim was first discussed. (For obvious reasons, Clint knows exactly what the briefing packet says, but Bucky still needs to read it cover to cover to get more than the gist of it.) In the meantime, Shuri’s built possibly the world’s largest and most unnecessarily luxurious space-worthy gigayacht out of Vibranium and Jabari wood. 
> 
> He’s seen smaller cruise ships. 
> 
> Let’s be real, Clint’s seen smaller _aircraft carriers_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An old fandom friend and writing partner agreed to lend a hand with this story after I recently introduced her properly to Darcyland. meliz875 is a brilliant writer and ruthless editor, and I love her to fucking _pieces_. I’m delighted she’s agreed to help me get all my plotbunnies in a row on this story, along with Zephrbabe and phoenix_173. 
> 
> Also, school starts in about two weeks here and, as some of you may know, I homeschool my 16yo, Spawn, so the update schedule is going to slow down a lot. 
> 
> Check the end notes for details on the ships used for inspiration in this story, and hit up the '[Endless Summer](https://chrissihr.tumblr.com/search/endless%20summer)' tag on my tumblr @chrissihr. Thanks for reading! Enjoy the update!

>>=========>

Their meeting falls by the wayside.

The ship from Wakanda is fucking HUGE, and while Clint and Bucky spend the afternoon casing the place for security, defensible positions, and weak points, Darcy is pulled away at first to greet the flight crew. She spends the day attending meetings with the captain and his operations crew, reviewing diplomatic process and procedures for dealing with the Light Elves. A meeting with the engineering and science teams follow to discuss their goals and needs once they reach their destination. Fortunately, Darcy and Shuri were thorough in their preparation, drafting the briefing packet months earlier when the idea for a diplomatic and scientific expedition to Alfheim was first discussed. (For obvious reasons, Clint knows exactly what the briefing packet says, but Bucky still needs to read it cover to cover to get more than the gist of it.) In the meantime, Shuri’s built possibly the world’s largest and most unnecessarily luxurious space-worthy gigayacht out of Vibranium and Jabari wood.

He’s seen smaller cruise ships.

Let’s be real, Clint’s seen smaller _aircraft carriers_.

This thing makes Fury’s fleet of helicarriers look like a couple of kids’ sailing prams.

Their family billet takes up just a small portion of two decks forward, with two, multi-level stateroom suites, four traditional staterooms, and _four private pools_.

There’s plenty of space for everyone in their extended family. Katie and Wanda each have spaces in the suite; and the other stateroom suite at the opposite end of their family compound is perfect for Steve and Nat.

Quartered up on Deck One in officer country, Sam and his mom find themselves next door to the captain and first officer. The captain has a bit of a crush on Sam’s mom and tucks her hand in his elbow, escorting her all over the ship and back as his personal guest. She flutters and bats her lashes and flirts like a woman half her age.

Sam quietly hates every second of it.

Bucky thinks it’s hysterical and can’t resist poking Sam about his ma stepping out with the captain.

The whole thing is ridiculous.

Clint loves it here.

Still, he kind of can’t believe the luxury of this ship. He served on the helicarrier. He knows cramped quarters on military vessels are born of necessity. The mission is what matters. This… He’s blown away by every foot of this tub, especially considering the shitty, little pod he knows the U.S. astronauts lived in on the first manned space flight to the moon.

Then, he’s reminded of his visit to Wakanda University’s Museum of Ancient Science and the capsule on display _there_ , the one that looks like a septjet and held a dozen Wakandans in relative comfort on their first manned flight to the moon hundreds of years before the U.S.

Everything Clint thinks he knows is a lie, really, is what it comes down to.

Wakanda is awesome and humbling in every way.

“Shuri named it,” Bucky’s explaining as he stands beside Clint, shoulder to shoulder, on the flight deck of His Majesty’s Space Cruiser Shishini. (Shuri’s U.S.S. Enterprise joke falls flat with anyone who doesn’t speak fairly fluent Wakandan.) They’re watching Talons coast in for a smooth landing to deposit the last dozen or so astrophysics interns accompanying them on their journey across realms. This ship is more than just transportation. It’s lab space and live-in classroom, too. “I’m not involved in the decision-making process, Clint. I just bunked there for a while. She’s sixteen and arguably the smartest person on the planet. It’s not like a lot of people say ‘no’ to her, anyway.”

“Shishini,” Clint snorts, laying an arm on the railing behind Bucky in a good, old yawn-and-stretch move to get his arm around his guy, or as close as he can manage while Bucky’s in this mood.

He’s grateful all seems to be forgiven. He spent his morning torn up over Buck’s words, overthinking, wondering, unsure if Buck meant for him to go and stay gone. That kind of uncertainty about his welcome, the physical fucking _ache_ in the pit of his stomach isn’t something he wants to repeat anytime soon. He’s had that conversation twice too often now for one life. He screwed up with Darcy. He won’t do it again with Bucky.

“Six Talons up here,” Bucky continues under his breath. “And I counted another six on the hangar deck below, not to mention whatever the hell those sailless boat things are where a pair of tenders should be. And at least one gun deck I’ve seen. Explain to me what we’re doing on a naval ship with a vibranium hull built like a luxury yacht by a landlocked country in central Africa. That’s what I wanna know.”

Clint shrugs. “It’s not like they invite me to the meetings where these things are decided, either,” he says, watching as Darcy greets the last group of student interns. A swarm of baby-faced recruits arrive shortly thereafter to take their bags and trunks, and herd them off the busy flight deck. She’s been on her feet from the moment their Talon touched down, working with the quartermaster just this last hour or so to get everyone settled and make sure the briefing packet’s been distributed to everyone ahead of their departure. She’ll be busy fielding Alfheim questions in the lecture hall until dinnertime with this latest group’s arrival.

Thankfully, despite the ship’s size, the complement of crew, experts, and students is not outrageous. The people of Wakanda are aware what the appearance of a large group of explorers could look like to the Light Elves. Every effort has been made to protect the ship and give the appearance of a peaceful research vessel. Yes, there’s a gun deck, but the guns appear as if they’re for defense rather than shock and awe. Nothing is overly bulky, nor designed with intent to intimidate.

Shuri’s a genius, there’s no mistaking that.

Clint’s team is assigned quarters on the upper quarterdeck, mostly occupying suites and staterooms on Decks Two and Three with the chief science and engineering officers who have families, with just the Wilsons on Deck One with the chief operations crew quarters. Clint and Buck plan to give the suites a closer inspection once the last Talon is on board, but Buck got that undeniable itch—something that told him to _watch_ everyone board, to meet every member of the crew, shake hands, and look into their eyes.

Just to be sure no one stinks of Hydra.

With the exception of their team and a few partnering scientists from NASA Darcy somehow argued for inclusion, the crew is Wakandan. Loyal to T’Challa and Shuri, Bucky knows nearly all of them. He meets a few who worked as War Dogs in training elsewhere during his stay in-country, but they’re few and far between. Upon their first meeting, they recognize Bucky on sight and treat him deferentially, calling him the Wakandan equivalent of ‘Cousin-Friend to the Golden Tribe’, according to Darcy, who translates using AllSpeak. (Admittedly, she warned, AllSpeak isn’t perfect. It occasionally trips up on idioms from newly encountered languages. It will adjust eventually, like it did for Thor, but the spell has to learn the quirks of the language through frequent use, too. Not that the Wakandans help the matter much, all of them switching to English when it becomes apparent Clint can’t keep up.)

“I’m pretty sure there are a pair of those one-man fighters T’Challa prefers attached below the waterline at the front of this thing, too,” Clint signs to Bucky when the flight deck clears of all civilian scientific personnel. “Be easier to see ‘em once we’re underway and this thing is hovering above the waves instead of riding ‘em.”

“God, I love Wakanda.” Bucky smiles, hooking an arm around Clint’s neck as the afternoon’s tension starts to ebb. They turn to go, making their way alongside the flight deck on a catwalk meant for only the hardiest and most seaworthy souls. It’s a good thing they’re not afraid of heights. It’s only this one deck, but it keeps the civilians from wandering where they don’t belong. Half-Hawkeye Evie scampered across the open grates unbothered when they arrived, but the catwalk made Mrs. Wilson say a sincere and meaningful prayer before she stepped onto the nerve-wracking open grate decking surrounding the flight deck. She’s an old Army nurse, she said, not bloody Chair Force. She crossed herself and all but leapt into the captain’s embrace when he offered a steadying arm.

“It’ll be hard to go back home when this is all over,” Clint admits, leaning into Buck’s touch. Buck tenses and Clint wonders where he’s stepped wrong already. He can’t quite look him in the eye, though, to ask what’s wrong. He just started to feel like his feet were on solid ground again.

He … he _wants_ this to work.

And he wants what Bucky’s starting with Darcy to work, too.

Somehow.

Not just for his own ends, no matter how much shit he talked to Buck about how incredible it would be to have them both in his bed. Buck is strength and stability, Clint’s safe harbor. Darce is his weakness. He’d curl around her and protect her if he she let him, even from himself.

Bucky could protect her.

If Clint regrets anything, it’s that he couldn’t— _didn’t_ protect her—that he hurt her, that he lost control for one second…

He’ll never forget the terror in her eyes when she gasped his name. It haunts him, that look. And now Evie… He swallows, hard.

Darce and Buck are air and water to him, both missed when they’re gone and never appreciated anywhere near enough when he has them. It’s a fleeting thing, whatever this is between him and Buck, as fragile as he and Darcy ever were. He knows exactly how fragile can turn to brittle now, too.

The new doc tells him to start by communicating, even if it means just being honest instead of saying nothing. Back when Darcy told him he better go, he honestly couldn’t think of a single reason she’d be better off if he stayed. He’d been honest then, and agreed.

And look how that bit him in the ass.

He let depression and pure fucking mental chaos make the decision for him at the time, but he’s working on it—toward a goal now. He wants to be a part of Evie’s life. A real one, not just the guy who signs the checks and can’t trust himself to take her overnight.

He needs to deal with his nightmares. He’s got a dream journal. This is supposed to be the easy part, his therapy homework: write down the monster chasing him from bed early every morning, his impressions, what he thinks it means, how it makes him feel. Once he and his doc have a handle on whatever’s causing his brain to create a fresh, new hellscape every night in his mind, he can find a reason for Darce to want him in her life and Evie’s life again.

He’s got a lot of work to do to make it happen, but that’s the thing…

This time, he’s willing to do it.

Because more than anything, he misses his baby girl. Evie is sunlight, his little blonde baby; she’s wide-eyed innocence and solid ground under his feet. He always knows where he stands with her. He wants to be what she needs—a better dad, more reliable, the one she can cry for and depend on when _she’s_ the one having bad nights.

He’s tired of running from his demons.

Shuri and his new therapist want him do a sleep study, too. He hopes Darce won’t mind bunking with Buck and Evie, just the three of them for a few nights, so he can get the ball rolling.

“You could stay,” Buck says with some sort of wizened, adult sentiment in his eyes, but Clint’s emotionally stunted, so it’s lost on him. He freezes, swallowing the lump in his throat.

(It’s only a little gratifying when Buck’s Adam’s apple bobs the same way.)

“With me,” Buck continues, exhaling a slow breath Clint recognizes for what it is: an attempt to control his reactions, give no more away than he intends. (Even here, they can’t just be two guys; spies and snipers, first and always.) “We could stay in Wakanda.”

He clears his throat and tightens the flesh arm around Clint’s neck as they approach the stairs to the next level. “Evie’ll wanna go back and forth some, I imagine, see her ma and her pop, and Darce probably wants to stay on in Wakanda at least a few more years. You could … you could stay. Maybe the three of us… I dunno, we’ll work somethin’ out. Get a big place, lots’a bedrooms, plenty’a space for everyone, one’a those family compounds like the Wakandans love, with three and four generations all around a courtyard-like. Stevie and Nat would love that, Katie and Wanda, too, I bet.”

“I … I gotta work, Buck.” Clint stutters because the conversation veers in a direction he didn’t see coming and he’s fucking blindsided. Here he thinks he fucked up again and Buck wants to … what? Move in together? Play house? Don’t get him wrong, Clint would love to stay in one place, but he’s a soldier, still, and he knows it’s not that easy. He can’t think. He needs a minute.

A breath, that’s what he needs. Maybe a few.

When he pictured this working out, he considers while Buck watches him warily, he saw … maybe him and Buck on the move _together_ , he guesses, not whatever this is Buck’s thinking now.

Really, though, he’s not sure what he wants.

He figured on visiting a lot, sure, maybe even calling Buck’s place home when he’s off-duty, but he’s not meant for _home_ like Buck is, either. Like Darce is. For … canning tomatoes or whatever it is people do when they’re not reheating stale pizza for every meal. Buck and Darce are all white picket fences, and houses that aren’t on wheels or made of canvas.

“Evie’s happy to go home to Alfheim now, but me and her mom are both human.” Clint swallows, working harder to get past the lump in his throat. “She’ll grow up on Earth and, someday, if she takes after Darce like I hope, she’ll get into a good school. I gotta pay for doctors and dentists and diapers and everything between here and her first apartment. I’m not givin’ Darce anywhere near enough child support right now. I ... I gotta work and the work won’t be in Wakanda. I figured maybe Europe, somewhere, somebody might need a bowman or a sniper. I've worked with MI6…”

“Hawk, I got decades a’back pay comin’ once the lawyers sort this all out. You don’t gotta do that—” Buck tries to interrupt, but Clint knows.

He _knows_.

“I know what I’m good for, Buck,” he says with a resigned sigh, pausing on the stairs. He leans into the warm, solid weight of his guy. Buck is stalwart, silent. The arm around Clint’s neck slides down his to rest across his lower back, fingers hooked in a worn belt loop.

“Enough a’that.” Buck gives him a shake. “That’s not all you’re good for. With all you done and seen, the languages you speak, the places you been. You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for, Hawk. Maybe it’s time you quit yappin’ and learn how to listen.”

But Clint’s lost in his head. “The people who need my skill set don’t live in peaceful places like Wakanda. They’re either military or the kind of scum willing to pay for the guy with the best aim.” He sighs and squeezes Bucky back, but it’s half-hearted. His shoulders slump in defeat. “I know what I’m good for.”

He hates it, but he knows.

>>=========>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ship exterior inspired by the megayacht, [Prelude](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GycRTAEzVE&t=411s)  
> Ship interiors inspired by the megayacht, [Quattroelle](https://www.superyachtworld.com/yachts/gallery-lurssens-86-metre-quattroelle-in-antigua-4240)


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s … not a bad teacher, he guesses. 
> 
> He taught Evie how to swim and dive. 
> 
> And Darce is a crack shot because of his patience. 
> 
> He’s proud of that—even if he’s not enhanced like his teammates, those skills are his and he earned them the hard way. He eventually moved on to bigger and better teams, taking on a senior trainer position between missions, preparing baby-faced S.H.I.E.L.D. cadets for the kinds of challenges they’d face doing the same underappreciated grunt work where he got his start. 
> 
> He’s good at this, good at his job, and pretty damned good at teaching others how to do it. And here, for his team and on this ship, he can keep his family and the geeks safe, and maybe do some good for the world, too, while he’s at it. 
> 
> He might not even need to fight aliens this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Miss me? ;-) What can I say? Writing is hard, yo. 
> 
> Lots of folks in the comments last chapter had the same idea: Clint needs some aggressive cognitive recalibration, soo... I wrote him a good, old fashioned dicking instead. Enjoy! (^_^) 
> 
> Trigger warning: Hydra are assholes. There is a _very brief_ reference to past, non-consensual sexual contact in this chapter. If you'd rather avoid it, skip the dialogue paragraph that begins with "I got your back, Hawk."
> 
> Many thanks to my boo, meliz875, for editing my bits and pieces without mercy to make a shiny new (BETTER) chapter. She spent so much time on this chapter with me, helping me get it right and making it worth the long wait. 
> 
> Suggested listening: “Shotgun” by George Ezra (it’s what’s playing in the dancing scene in this chapter)

>>=========>

They take another lap around the perimeter to review security procedures as everyone settles into the watch rota and Clint’s thoughts tumble aimlessly in his head.

It’s times like this when he feels like a green recruit all over again, taking impossible orders from Agent Garrett and flailing to catch up, to measure up, feeling like he never will. It wasn’t until Coulson recruited him to Delta Team for ‘special training’ that Clint felt like the bar lowered enough to finally tumble over it by the skin of his teeth. Maybe remedial spy school is what he needed, though. Sure, he’s a grunt, but he’s not terrible at the hard parts of his job. And he’s good at breaking down even the simplest tasks to make them easier to learn for the new recruits. He’s … not a bad teacher, he guesses.

He taught Evie how to swim and dive.

And Darce is a crack shot because of his patience.

He’s proud of that—even if he’s not enhanced like his teammates, those skills are his and he earned them the hard way. He eventually moved on to bigger and better teams, taking on a senior trainer position between missions, preparing baby-faced S.H.I.E.L.D. cadets for the kinds of challenges they’d face doing the same underappreciated grunt work where he got his start.

He’s good at this, good at his job, and pretty damned good at teaching others how to do it. And here, for his team and on this ship, he can keep his family and the geeks safe, and maybe do some good for the world, too, while he’s at it.

He might not even need to fight aliens this time.

Starting at the lowest deck, they work their way up, passing Tash and Steve along the way, doing their own version of the same sweep.

Spies and soldiers, man.

As they check and double-check each level, Buck brushes against him. Not in an obvious way, but he definitely checks in, bumps shoulders, brushes knuckles with Clint time and again.

It’s … sweet, Clint decides. He’s never been with a guy who’s as good at the stuff in between as Buck. Clint can fuck and get fucked all day, but someone brings up a squishy feeling over pancakes, and he breaks out in hives. Buck’s great at saying everything without words, just a brush of fingers here and a nudge with a knee there. Before long, Clint catches himself reaching for Buck’s hand as he passes, anticipating the touch before it comes.

And without realizing it, the heavy feeling in his chest is a little lighter.

When they reach Shishini’s version of a crow’s nest—a sundeck above Deck One—ship’s security is tighter than a drum. Clint’s shoulders drop as he rolls his head and neck, and the lingering tension slips away.

“There’s time before dinner,” Buck says, coming abreast of him with an arm slung low across Clint’s back. “We could lay out up here a while, soak up some sunshine. There’s a couple lounge chairs folded up beside the steps we climbed up here.”

Music floats up on the ocean breeze from a balcony a few decks down. Something soft with a good beat that makes Clint sway with the gentle motion of the ship. (They’re still in the water, rather than over it, passing for any other luxury liner until they’re clear of the usual trade and tourism routes.)

“That what you wanna do?” He smiles, thumbs tucked in the front pockets of his frayed cutoffs, feeling loose and lazy in the late day sun with Buck here to watch his back.

“Mm, something like that,” Buck murmurs, turning Clint by his elbow. Before he realizes he’s being maneuvered, his feet already follow where Buck leads. “Just for a minute, okay? Just wanna hold you a minute,” Buck promises, sliding the flesh hand across his shoulder blades and pulling him close.

Time slows and Clint happily loses himself in the unfamiliar steps Buck’s using to push him around the small sundeck. The tiny plates of his cybernetic fingers recalibrate and his hold—impossibly—softens, pulling Clint to him.

Clint closes his eyes…

Buck’s breath is warm down the line of Clint’s throat and his scent is familiar in a way only another sniper can love, something like soap leather and cordite.

It reminds Clint of one of the only homes he called his own.

It was a tiny apartment he shared with Tash in D.C., back in the days after he brought her in. And maybe it’s weird that Buck reminds him of Tash, but at the same time, it’s kind of not. To hear Tash tell the story, the Winter Soldier as much raised her as Mother Russia. Maybe that’s the thing—the one that makes Buck feel like safety and home when hardly anything else has.

He nuzzles his guy, breathing in the soft, comforting scent of him, relaxing despite the strange surroundings.

Relaxing because he doesn’t need a house and white picket fences to find home… He just needs this, really.

He just needs Bucky.

“Is this...” Clint wonders, pressing his cheek to Buck’s, “Are we … waltzing?”

“Mm… Modified, but more or less.” He guides Clint with the arm across his back, his chest driving where Clint follows, even though he’s the one moving backward. Clint can’t remember ever dancing without leading before.

And now he’s here, in the arms of his guy, an honest-to-gods Howling Commando, who thinks of Tash as a remarkable little sister and Captain America as an annoying, little guy with a chip on his shoulder. His guy loves his girls, same as Clint, and still wants to turn a big guy like him around an impromptu dance floor just because there’s half-way decent music and he’s able.

“I think maybe you didn’t hear it enough when you were comin’ up in the circus, Hawk,” Buck murmurs in Clint’s good ear as he turns, slow and steady, close and warm. “But I care about you. I _love_ you, warts and all, and I think you’re pretty great.”

Clint freezes mid-step, the drowsy, comfortable feeling replaced by panic.

“You don’t gotta say it back, pal.” Lips brush his cheek and gentle pressure on hand and thigh force Clint’s suddenly clumsy feet to move through the figure again, following Buck’s lead. “Just wanted you to know.”

The breath won’t clear his lungs. He’s not ready. He’s a human disaster and Buck’s building those picket fences he wants around them while Clint just fucking … _waltzes_ here, speechless and lost.

“I don’t…” He stutters and his heart does a thing. He’s not sure whether it’s racing or stopped altogether. “I need a minute, just…” Clint staggers and Buck’s hold loosens enough for them to retreat a step and give each other some room. He needs… Some room. _More_ room. That’s what he needs.

He can’t look at Bucky, he can’t, but he sees him anyway, the way his hands drop, palms forward, showing Clint he’s unarmed, not a threat. He’s not backing him into a corner.

Clint breathes a little easier.

“Just wanted you to know, Hawk.” Buck leaves that space between them, that necessary space. He gives Clint room, lets him breathe and find his feet beneath him. “I already died once with too many regrets. I ain’t gonna hold back now. It’s okay you don’t feel the same yet, but when I hear you say you’re only good for one thing, it gets my back up, you know? Too damn many people let you pass on by without sayin’ or showin’ they cared about more than just your incredible aim in your short life. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna be one of ‘em, too. You’re more than a bow and quiver full of trick arrows to me.”

Clint nods, shaky still, but listening. Part of communicating better, his doctor said, was listening, too, and actually hearing what the people who love him are trying to tell him.

Bucky loves _him_ , not Hawkeye from Team Delta or the Amazing Hawkeye, World’s Greatest Bowman, but Clint, Bucky’s Hawk.

“What you _need_ is to quit runnin’, sweetheart.” Slowly, Buck closes the gap and lays hands on him, on his hips—a featherweight touch—like trying to gentle a spooked horse. His hand slides up Clint's spine and he presses their chests together with none of his earlier finesse, and Clint can feel Buck’s heart racing, too. “I made a deal with myself, about how I won’t let you run away again, and to never hold back again. Nobody knows like I do that we’re not promised tomorrow. I’mma show you what it looks like when somebody cares for you the way you deserve and I’m not gonna waste time chasing after you to do it.” He pecks Clint on the lips, pressing the tips of their noses together until Clint goes cross-eyed. “This is how I feel and where I stand, pal. Deal with it.”

“Buck…” Clint tries to back up, runs the fingers of both hands through his hair, clutching at his scalp, but Buck follows, refusing to let him go. There can’t be so much as an inch between them right now. “It’s a lot, all at once? It’s a lot. I’m great at arrows, you know? Not this? I’m _so bad_ at this.” His breath hitches and he leans into his guy, pressing his forehead to Buck’s chest, arms falling to circle his waist.

“I love you,” Buck says again. He follows it up with a kiss to the crown of Clint’s head and he shudders at the unaccustomed touch. It’s hard to hear it from somebody who doesn’t want anything from him. Easier, he thinks, when it’s used as a weapon, to hurt or manipulate. It’s hard to trust that it’s meant at face value.

He needs time.

“I’m not calling you a liar.” Clint closes his hands over Bucky’s lower back and leans into him. He can’t look at him right now. “It’s just—people use that word all the time and it means nothing to them. And me… I’m barely even half a real person most of the time, and all of a sudden, you love me and wanna move in and make this thing real and I’m still fucking up a whole relationship behind, trying to do right by Darcy and clean up the _last_ mess I made.”

“ _Mess you made?_ You’re still not listening, Hawk,” Bucky huffs, hauling Clint to the stairs and down in a hurry.

Clint flails in surprise, taken off guard like always when Buck flexes the muscles he hides from everyone else like it really is as easy as turning it on and off.

Buck blows off the deck crew gaping and blinking at them in astonishment, and drags Clint into the nearest lift with a shake that rattles his joints. He jabs the button to call the lift and eyes the ascending numbers above the call button, holding Clint firmly in place.

“No, you wait a minute,” he says when Clint clears his throat to bitch about the rough handling. “I’mma talk to you, but I’mma do it somewhere a helluva lot more private than the main salon, surrounded by half the damn team tryin’ to melt into the shadows. Ain’t no need to air our dirty laundry where everybody and their Black Widow can overhear,” he mutters. Finally, the lift stops and Buck bundles him inside, slapping at the button for Deck Three.

The ride is short, but he’s not done manhandling Clint down the corridor to their family’s quarters.

Banging through the door to their private suite, he drags Clint up a flight of stairs behind the media center in the main family salon. Clint has no goddamn idea what’s gotten into Buck, but he’s only gonna tolerate being shoved around so much before he starts shoving back.

Their room is palatial, but it’s wasted on Clint and Bucky. There’s a scuffle at the top of the stairs when Clint tries to break Buck’s iron grip on his elbow, but his grip is actually _Vibranium_ and Clint likes his elbow in one piece, thank you very fucking much.

“Hey, watch it!” he gripes when Buck steers him to the nearest door and throws it open, tossing Clint inside. As it closes, Clint finally appreciates the size of their suite. “Holy shit,” he breathes, ducking under Buck’s arm to pop the door back open and gape at their surroundings. Their bedroom alone stretches across the full breadth of the ship in the forward section just for him, Darce, and Buck.

Bucky spins Clint around. They’re standing in a tiled lounge area that reminds Clint of something out of an Arabian Nights movie. There are loungers and flickering lanterns and massage tables, and vented pipes pumping scented steam into the room. It’s a … spa?

This thing really is part-cruise ship.

“You seen your share a’Shuri’s handiwork, so siddown and quit gawkin’ a minute.” Bucky shoves Clint at the nearest lounge in the tiled steam room. He turns and flips the lock so they won’t be interrupted.

“The hell, Buck…?” Clint shrinks in on himself, uncertain as to what he’s about to get chewed out for.

“You stubborn asshole,” Bucky grunts and takes a deep breath, hands on hips, staring at the wall beside the door. When he does face him, Clint can’t tell what he’s thinking.

(He’s not great at feelings, okay?)

“I know it’s hard to swallow, trustin’ I say what I mean when you known me less than a year. And askin’ for help from someone like me is even harder,” Buck starts, pausing for a deep breath, “but there’s a talk we ain’t had yet, one we _should_ have. Right now, in fact, so you stop beatin’ yourself up over this same damn worry with Evie and Darcy.”

He pulls up another wooden lounge thing across from Clint and sits close enough so their knees bump. Grabbing Clint’s hands, he runs his thumbs over the callouses and thickened knuckles from years of abuse and training.

“I got your back, Hawk. I _got_ money, millions in accounts I lifted from Hydra after I killed every motherfucker who ever laid a hand on me or Nataliya in violence or ordered someone else to. They beat me, tortured me, erased me, even fucked me and ordered me to use my body for the same when it suited their end goals, and now it’s over. I got free and killed every last one a’those scumbags deader than Moses himself. The thing about bein’ a brainless zombie half the time,” he rushes on, “is no one thinks twice about what they say in front of it. Accounts, passcodes, safehouses, even bolt holes where they dumped kings’ ransoms in gold bars and gemstones. I emptied the accounts, and stashed millions, maybe _billions_ overseas. I got buckets a’money, Clint, and enough gold bars to brick up a whole house—maybe two or three, even.”

He lifts a hand to run it through Clint’s hair, scratching at his scalp where he knows Clint can’t help but turn to jelly under his hand.

“Take every dime. It means nothing to me compared to what you give me, even when the words stick in your throat, because I know you got my back, too. I’ll spend every goddamned dime a’that money on the people who touch me with love and kindness now, so don’t you argue about havin’ a sugar daddy, either,” he says when Clint opens his mouth to remind Bucky that money belongs to him and him alone.

Because at ‘sugar daddy’, Clint cracks a smile.

“If Evie wants to just roll in millions of dollars in diamonds and rubies instead of going to college when she finishes high school, I can make that happen, sweetheart. I got money enough for you and me and Darce and Evie, and Stevie and Nat, if it comes to that. Katie and Wanda, too. They’re goin’ to Wakanda U this autumn. Already paid, so don’t give me shit about that, either.” He taps Clint on the nose to remind him to keep his trap shut because he’s not done. “And if you wanna go back to school, for _whatever_ you want, there’s money for that, too, Hawk.”

Bucky cups Clint’s cheeks and, when he presses their foreheads together like they always do, Clint melts a little, sinking into the warmth of his touch and reassurance. And of course he knows Buck would never let Darce and Evie go without. A half-blind idiot could see how much Buck already loves them, too, so maybe it’ll be okay. Clint takes a deep breath. Maybe it’ll all be okay.

“I wanna take all that money they made on my back through fear and hate and control,” Buck continues, stroking Clint’s jaw as he slides the cybernetic hand behind Clint’s head to stroke at the nape of his neck like scruffing a puppy, “and I wanna use it to make the world better for the people I care about and the ones who matter. I wanna start a charity for sick kids like Stevie, and fucked up kids comin’ back from war like me, and kids who grew up without like Wanda, and all kind’a other kids. Clint, we’ll start a goddamned circus summer camp, if it’s what you want. You never, ever have to worry about money, okay?”

Then Buck kisses him and Clint’s mind stutters, his remaining worries pushed to the side.

There’s nothing in this moment but Bucky’s lips and his own, the slick slide of tongues and the occasional clack of teeth as they come together over and over again, brushing noses. He tugs on Bucky’s bottom lip, sucking the full lobe into his mouth. And he’d stay right here forever, suspended in this one moment, if he could—if other responsibilities didn’t weigh so heavy, but he knows they’d only pull him away eventually.

But he’ll remember the moment, his lover’s lip between his, the soft roundness of it, the surrender as he silently begs for Clint’s surrender, too.

It makes him shiver just thinking about how vulnerable Buck is when he lets Clint do that shit, how much he trusts him not to cause him pain.

He wishes he could be worthy of that kind of trust all the time.

When he pulls back, Bucky runs a calloused thumb over Clint’s cheek. “Or, if you want, we can bum around Wakanda for a few years, teach archery or hand to hand, or, hell, just juggle and ride a unicycle around town for shits and giggles, if you like. They prob’ly got some elephants in Birnin Zana would make ya feel right at home after a while. There’s no rush to work or head back out on the road is what I’m sayin’.” His eyes plead with Clint for understanding, for the precious gift of time fate’s given them so little of until now. “The world ain’t gonna save itself, come time for that. Dollars to donuts says someone gets wind of us bein’ off planet and everyone gets up in arms because half the world’s protectors aren’t home to save it from itself because a’the damned Accords.”

“I think it’s what Darce is counting on, to be honest,” Clint admits, sharing breath with Bucky when he exhales. “S’why she and Shuri been workin’ to find an in with Alfheim since the holidays last year. One picture of us visiting another dimension and the anti-Accords protestors are gonna go apeshit to get us back. It’s one thing for us to hide on Earth. It’s a-whole-nother thing for us to be where we can’t protect the planet from another alien invasion.”

He leans into Bucky, trembling, fighting for control at the thought of it.

“I don’t wanna fight any more aliens, Buck-o.” His throat tightens up and a voice in the back of his head reminds him how he nearly failed last time, what it almost cost him.

What it _did_ ultimately cost him and the people he cares about.

He should count his blessings. Fury brought Coulson back, after all, but now he knows how that happened, about the T.A.H.I.T.I. Project, and how it nearly destroyed a good man’s mind.

Clint’s so tired of fighting.

He wants that summer circus camp. He likes kids. He wants to teach someone to juggle and walk a tightrope and turn a cartwheel, and how to loose an arrow with that satisfying _—thunk—_ when it hits dead center.

So maybe he wants to be a dad, first. He wants to earn a real place in Evie’s life, day in and day out, and for his scent to remind _her_ of home, for once.

And he wants to be a good dad, too, not just _look_ like one, not just _act_ like one during their whirlwind afternoons together from time to time. He knows that type, the Disneyland Daddies who only do fun stuff with their kids to buy their love.

He wants to be the one she comes to with her bad dreams and booboos, to tape up the ear on her HawkBear when one falls off and he needs a pair of bandaids slapped over it until someone finds the suture thread in the first aid kit and sews the missing part back on to keep the fluff inside from spilling all over.

And he wants to be there when she potty trains and learns to ride a bike and … holds her first bow.

He wants to _be there_.

“Sweetheart, you never have to fight again,” Buck promises, holding Clint’s chin and pressing one more kiss to his lips. “We got fighters. Hell, we got a-whole-nother Hawkeye now, too. Wakanda U’s the kind’a place’ll give Katie extra credit for savin’ the world, I bet. So lay down your bow, if ya want. Live in these ugly cutoffs a while and put on twenty pounds with me between Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

Clint snorts.

“I wanna wake up with you, sweetheart, every mornin’, and go to sleep holdin’ you every night.” Bucky kisses his nose. “I wanna fuck and fight and make up, like normal assholes with mortgages and car payments and puppies pissin’ on the rug do on the regular, too.”

“That sounds terrible; no puppies,” Clint tweaks his guy...

His _boyfriend_?

His boyfriend.

A complex sensation like love and desire and wanting to belong to someone rolls through him at the thought of calling Bucky his boyfriend, a feeling he can’t name. (He’s great at arrows, not feelings. Get off him, already.)

“Okay, ‘no’ on puppies, but—” Buck ventures, voice turning sly and cajoling now that he’s got Clint’s mind on something other than his fear of facing hostile aliens in battle again, “—not now, a’course, but someday—we could … talk about giving Evie a little brother. I remember wanting that before the war, in a someday way, and this past week, you and Darcy and Evie reminded me it’s still there inside me, that I— _we_ could have that.”

When he’s ready, when putting dinner on the table for his family doesn’t mean killing for a paycheck, Clint thinks he might want that, too.

Someday.

In the meantime, though, he wants Bucky.

“I want you,” he admits, dazed and breathless, his heart pounding as Bucky races ahead of him again, always ten steps ahead and planning for a future Clint’s never counted on being alive to see. “Can we start with that? Like, little, tiny steps first? I’d like some time to get to know my … boyfriend better.”

Clint rolls his lips, panting with the strain of admitting what he wants, still afraid it’ll get yanked out from under his feet when he screws up. Again. He almost can’t look Buck in the eye, he wants him so bad. “If you give me a minute to catch up, I think I can want all those things with you—the houses and mortgages, even the puppies. You wanna give me and my girls _everything_ and it’s so much, Buck… If you just … give me a beat to catch my breath, I can give those things to you. I want to. S’the least I can do, so you … know how much you mean to me. I could,” he pauses, sliding his hands up the ladder of Buck’s ribs, marveling silently at the thick, solid feel of him, “show you. Lemme show you. I’m great at this part.”

“That so?” Buck growls. “Good thing that door’s got a lock, I s’pose,” he says before he sinks to his knees at Clint’s feet. He’s got Clint’s cutoffs open and his half-hard cock in his mouth before Clint can register the part about the locked door.

Yeah, good thing, he thinks as Buck shoves him back onto the lounge chair and pulls down his cutoffs, shoving his knees wide until they part of their own accord, falling off either side of the lounge. Buck’s mouth slides off his cock and he shimmies up real close, lifting Clint’s knees and draping his legs over Bucky’s thighs until he can feel Buck’s cock pressing against his ass. Clint’s cock is hot, hard enough to drive a nail and shivering in the damp air of the tiled steam room until Buck’s hand closes over it and tugs. He’s talking, but Clint’s accidentally knocked the aid on his good side out of his ear in the rush to get his dick out. The other aid’s not as strong, so the words aren’t real clear.

He signs, “Wait, wait, I can’t hear you tryin’ to talk your way onto my dick like this,” with a smile, trying to readjust his hearing aid while Buck does everything in his power to lay Clint out flat and wide and bare before he slides backward and swallows him down whole again.

“Fuck, Christ, Jesus FUCK!” Clint yelps, realizing too late he’s probably a lot louder than is strictly polite, considering where they are and what they shouldn’t be doing in a space they share with Darcy and Evie.

And then it doesn’t really matter he can’t hear his boyfriend because Buck’s got his mouth full anyway and his mind on the mission. Hands, too, Clint groans to himself when the slick, wet tip of a cybernetic finger presses against his asshole.

 _Sweet Jesus Christ on a rubber cross_ , Clint thinks, his eyes crossing and mind whiting out for a few heartbeats.

“If you fuck me bareback now, I’ll be dripping spunk all niiight,” he moans, bucking his hips when the finger wiggles inside. They don’t have lube; they really shouldn’t do this. He’ll be dripping _and_ limping, he thinks.

But Bucky Goddamn Barnes grew up with the original Man with a Plan. Clint’s thinking about how hot and wet Buck’s mouth is, how good it’ll feel as his balls start to draw up tight when Buck’s palm quits pressing on his taint for a second and returns, hotter than three hells and covered with something slick and even hotter.

“The fuuuck?” he moans, arching his back and hitching up his knees to rest his feet on the lounge where he can get traction to make all the fucking room. When his eyes flutter open, he sees Buck leaning over to a high station by a private massage table and liberating a couple more pumps of hot massage oil for his own nefarious purposes. He covers his dick in the same oil and presses back in without more than a cursory finger to prep again. It stings, but it’s a kind of burn Clint loves. They don’t always do it this way, but when they’re short on time, Clint hardly minds. Buck gives him a moment or two to adjust against the blunt intrusion of his cock head, then starts the slow press and slide in, aiming unerringly at Clint’s prostate and hitting his target on the first try.

Fucking snipers, Clint thinks, cock-drunk and stupid. It’s so good. So good. He tells Buck, too, and maybe claws at his back. Fuck knows, honestly. Goddamn, that’s some good dick.

“S’good, fuck, so good, like that, more like that,” he begs as Buck pulls back, slow and deliberate, dragging over that same spot. “Gonna come, can’t wait, can’t wait,” Clint warns, panting through the pleasure to buy himself a few seconds when slow and thick is just about ready to do it for him long before Buck gets to fast and hard.

Buck leans over him with a kiss, tucks the aid back in Clint’s ear, and tells him, “Hold on, babydoll.”

It’s about all he can do as Buck pulls back slow one last time and slides home to give Clint a final smear of slick, then he’s pistoning with rapid-fire strokes meant to get them both there fast and together and _soon_.

Fuck _soon_ —he’s fucking there, he realizes, about to be flung over the edge, and it’s _so good_ …

It burns, but it’s, unf, good, yeah, good. Clint whines, high and desperate as he’s swept away to the sound of Buck chanting, “Yeah, fuck yeah, just like that, sweetheart, take it so good for me,” with his balls slapping Clint’s ass and his cock working over his prostate without mercy. He’s got a hand wrapped halfway around Clint’s throat, but it’s not bad with his head tipped back like this and Buck’s mouth all over him. It’s more more like being cradled, held like something precious.

That’s what Buck does to him—makes him feel precious, cared for, fragile, a safe place for Clint to break.

But when he does, he _shatters_.

Hot on the heels of his first orgasm, Clint peaks a second time almost immediately when Bucky races him to the finish, grunting nonsense and softness and sweet words against Clint’s throat as he buries himself deep and fills his lover to kingdom come.

“L’you, Buck,” is the last thing Clint remembers before he wraps his arms and legs around Buck and presses a sloppy kiss to his lips, crashing hard and fast in the aftermath for a combat nap. Sticky and spent and exhausted, there’s no place he’d rather be.

>>=========>


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are days when nothing goes right, Clint thinks, rousing from the last dregs of his unplanned nap. Clint’s had too many of those days to count, but that means it should be easier to tell the good ones from the bad ones, too, he decides in the muzzy space between asleep and awake. 
> 
> Good days exist—not that he’s experienced many in his life, but he knows, in theory, people have good days all the time. 
> 
> So as he wakes, tucked in bed under the top sheet, warm and lax, and aching in all the right places with nobody shouting or shooting or more disappointed in him than usual, he thinks this must be what it’s like for other people—one of the good days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HUGE thanks to meliz875 for beta-reading and helping me pull this chapter together, and to phoenix-173 for pre-reading. *mwah!*

>>=========>

There are days when nothing goes right, Clint thinks, rousing from the last dregs of his unplanned nap. Clint’s had too many of those days to count, but that means it should be easier to tell the good ones from the bad ones, too, he decides in the muzzy space between asleep and awake.

Good days exist—not that he’s experienced many in his life, but he knows, in theory, people have good days all the time.

So as he wakes, tucked in bed under the top sheet, warm and lax, and aching in all the right places with nobody shouting or shooting or more disappointed in him than usual, he thinks this must be what it’s like for other people—one of the good days. Despite the rough start to their day on the island, their argument over Clint’s failings as a partner, and the realization that he fucked things up with Darcy maybe even beyond the ability to patch up, he and Buck are good.

Real good.

And if that’s all he ever has—if he can’t mend things with Darce or she never forgives him—he can be okay with it. Buck makes him happy and wants things for him to make him even happier. A place to call home, a good dog, family, someone he trusts on his six—quality of life, the shrinks would call it. Probably. Buck knows more about that, he guesses, having grown up normal and everything going to shit for him later in life.

It’s only with Buck he feels like he can let his guard down, let somebody else carry the burden of safety and security a while. But that makes a certain kind of sense. Buck can take care of himself and watch Clint’s back, too. Clint can take his ears out and the blanket deafness doesn’t feel like it’s smothering his other senses when Buck’s there to fill in Clint’s deficit.

And here they are now falling into that new, familiar pattern. Buck’s breath heats Clint’s bare shoulder as he lays pressed along Clint’s naked flank—between Clint and the door, in fact. Buck’s got a foot hooked inside Clint’s knee and his cock feels weighty and ready for another round against Clint’s hip. His ass aches in the best way just thinking about having another go.

It’s only then he realizes he’s _in bed_ , not passed out cold in the lounge chair he and Buck ruined when they returned to their suite. Buck’s breath is deep and even, meaning he’s been out a while, too, catching up while he can after a week of rough nights adjusting to the baby’s schedule. It’s good. They needed this. He can’t imagine how Darce is coping. If he and Buck have been scraping by on half a night’s sleep, Darcy can’t be doing more than napping a few hours a night with all the interruptions. Between the occasional bad dream, a nursing baby, Clint rising early to escape his nightmares, and Buck’s frequent bouts of insomnia triggered by fuck knows what, it seems like Darce is always awake. Or she’s developed some kind of sixth Mom sense and blinks awake at the first sign of disturbance.

Clint’s not sure how that sort of thing works. He can’t really remember his mom.

By his other side, the bed dips and he shifts, sliding into the warm hand gently stroking his forearm. He blinks awake, surprised to find their stateroom cast in the soft blue shadows of early evening.

He’s been out for hours.

It takes Clint’s groggy mind a beat to remember why she’s there, that she’s sharing the stateroom with them, too. Darcy smiles and, in that moment, Clint could care less he’s lost half the afternoon (and probably been carried to bed by his boyfriend rather than left to sleep it off in the steam room).

She’s changed into a light robe at some point with her hair piled high on her head and the baby hairs curling softly around her temples like they do when she takes a bath, but doesn’t want to get her hair wet again. He’s glad to see she’s had a few minutes to herself, but his fingers itch to play with those little, curling hairs. He wishes they were in a place where he’d be welcome to draw her down to lay with them, peel the robe down her arms and wrap her up in him and his guy.

No one crowded him and Buck all afternoon like Darcy had to deal with when the scientists and specialists descended, asking questions, demanding answers with the sudden change of plans to go to Alfheim months earlier than anticipated. He knows she’s been on her feet for hours, trying to catch up with Shuri and the captain, and the arrangements made while she’s been minding superheroes. Shuri’s good—thorough even, but they’re leaving almost three months earlier than originally planned and Darcy’s responsible for smoothing a lot of the rough edges as Wakanda’s expert on Alfheim.

Honestly, Clint didn’t realize just how involved Darcy was in the whole process or he might have run his surprise by her first before pulling on the few threads available to him to guarantee their trip to Alfheim this summer. She’s not mad, thank fuck, but she does look tired. He wishes they had time to take a real vacation, but he knows they’re not there yet, anyway.

Someday, maybe.

She says something, but Clint realizes he hasn’t got his ears in and has no idea where they’ve gone.

“My ears,” he signs, “I can’t. Wait, wait.” He sits up part-way, running a hand through his hair as another warm weight settles against his opposite side.

Bucky.

Buck’s chest is vibrating against his thigh. He’s saying something, but Clint can’t—

On the wall opposite the bed, text appears on a holoscreen where he thought there was just … you know, wall? (Wakanda, man…) It says, “Your ears are on the nightstand.” Bucky only pats his thigh under the covers and burrows in deeper when Clint tries to sign his thanks and not, like, gape at Shuri’s advanced A.I. anticipating his needs and captioning the parts of the conversation he misses when his hearing aids aren’t in.

Darcy’s still smiling. Her cheeks are all dimpled and she looks really pleased with herself for some reason.

Loathe to put his ears back in until he absolutely has to, Clint struggles to sit up fully and signs, “What’s up?”

“Dinner is in two hours,” she signs carefully. “I came back to get ready an hour ago, but I put off waking you as long as I could. I’m surprised you slept so long with me banging around in the bathroom.” The corner of her lip curls in mute apology. “Um, the bathroom is free now, so…” She trails off, then— “I’ll use the dressing room so you’ll have the bathroom to yourselves a while yet.” Her throat moves like she’s clearing it and she won’t quite meet his eye.

Oh.

She’s nervous?

“What’s wrong?” And maybe he’s jumped to the wrong conclusion, but she looks a little uneasy, glancing at him and off to the side—

No.

At Bucky, clinging to Clint like an octopus under the top sheet. His face is pressed to Clint’s ribs. He’s stirring awake, just pressed there, one arm draped over Clint’s waist possessively as he flexes and his cock nudges at Clint again, reminding him what they could be doing right now if Clint got his shit together. (That’s also when he realizes he’s not actually naked. Buck somehow wrestled him back into his boxers in his sleep. The guy’s a magician, for real. Clint can hardly do that right when he’s mostly conscious.)

She’s glancing between them.

“I’m sorry. I don’t…” She grimaces, curling her hands in her lap, cutting him off from her words. She rocks forward, telegraphing her intention to rise from the bed and move away.

Frustrated, Clint leans over and taps at her knee before she can bolt, pointing to his eyes when she finally works up the nerve to look at him.

“Sorry, sorry,” she’s quick to sign an apology, hovering on the edge of the bed like a bird afraid to perch for fear of the branch giving way. “It’s just…”

Words fail her momentarily and she settles more firmly on the mattress. She takes a deep breath and swallows hard.

“It’s just we haven’t talked about what this means.” She points to indicate the three of them in a kind of V-shape with Bucky at the center. “I don’t even know if there’s a sign for the word for what this is, honestly,” she signs with a laugh he’ll assume is self-deprecating because he knows that look—the quick laugh and glance away. He’s seen her do it a million times at karaoke night back in Puente Antiguo. She loves music. Hell, she damn near took Coulson’s head off to get her iPod back from The Man, but karaoke night was for drinking and watching, not for joining in, as far as Darcy was concerned. Clint begged her to sing, but the crowd didn’t do it for her. She sang in the shower, sometimes, he remembers, back when they first hooked up. When she was really, incredibly happy, she’d sing around him as she got ready, or to herself in the shower, and even right over his shoulder when they crowded together at the sink, racing the clock to get to the lab on time.

He can’t remember the last time he heard her sing.

“Poly-fidelity V,” he says and signs, swallowing the sudden lump in his throat. (Has she been so unhappy? Did he do that, too?) The signs aren’t something he’s had the chance to teach her yet and the vocabulary for what they’re trying to work out is still pretty new to him, too. Then he adds, “Monogam-ish,” with a wry grin just to be sure she’s clear that he’s making an only-them distinction. “Yeah?”

The corner of her mouth pulls up in a half-smile and her eyebrow arches in that way it has of calling out his bullshit without her ever saying a word.

“What?” he demands. “I googled it. Took three seconds.”

“ _We_ googled it,” appears on the wall just as Clint feels Buck’s lips move against his ribs. When he looks down, Buck’s eyes are open and intent on Darcy. He turns his head and presses his cheek to Clint’s ribs, giving her the benefit of his full attention. “The words are important, right? Like communicating is important,” he twists around to sign with a pointed glance up at Clint. “If we know what we are going into it, we’re all going to be more comfortable in these relationships.”

 _Relationships_.

Plural.

Him and Buck. Buck and Darce.

And maybe him and Darce, too…

But Clint still hasn’t earned back her trust. He’s very much on the outside of what she has with Buck, maybe forever. It makes something in him _hurt_. He’s bad at feelings—worse at analyzing them, but this… It fucking _aches_ , and he can’t even name whatever it is. (‘Improving communication’ just moved to the top of his list of priorities. He’ll talk to the shrink about it, he decides. Maybe she can help him tag some of his many unnameable feelings and doubts. Shrinks do that, he thinks. He _hopes_.)

Darcy rolls her lips—a nervous tell, but it must be okay because she nods, promptly repeating the new signs after him to commit them to memory. Buck follows suit, sitting up enough to copy the motions, too. It reminds Clint of their early days together—him and Darcy, back when they spent weekend mornings laying around her cramped apartment in nothing but their underwear and his shitty, S.H.I.E.L.D.-issued BTEs, playing strip vocabulary until everybody was a winner!

They had so much fun together in the desert, played like kids—or teenagers, he guesses. Not that he would know much about what normal kids do, but it was a kind of gift she gave him. Feeling young and almost carefree, and fuck-dumb sometimes, happily lead around by his dick and her red lips and pretty blue-green eyes. Coulson’s team gave him endless shit about chasing the twenty year old coed like a lovesick kid, but Clint wouldn’t give up one moment of the long days he had with her in the desert, learning each other inside out and falling even deeper for her while she soaked up his undivided attention and love like a sponge along with his lessons in ASL.

God, he misses her.

“I’m happy for you and Buck. He’ll be good to you,” he eventually signs in silence, chewing on his lip, hoping it’s the right thing to say.

“I’m glad you guys managed to work things out, too,” she signs, eyes sparkling with a kind of shy happiness he can’t remember ever seeing on her before, then bounces up on her knees to hug him around the neck and say something to Bucky over his shoulder. She’s soft and oh so warm even in the thin robe against his chest when he hugs her in return as Bucky replies. Clint’s eyes are closed, so he misses the words, but he does feel her little hum against his neck. It makes him shiver and set her back on her heels. He can’t resist caressing her from hip to knee as he lets go. A blush creeps up her neck, but she doesn’t call him on it. Her dimple curls deeper and her lashes flutter against her cheeks.

Maybe it’s okay.

(He’ll check in with Buck later, too, make sure he understands where the line is to be sure, though. He doesn’t wanna fuck this up for his boyfriend any more than he wanted to lose Darce in the first place.)

“Come on,” she signs, hot and flustered and refusing to look him in the eye as she swipes a curl out of her face with an impatient flick of fingers, like he suggested she join them in bed for round two. It’s kind of adorable that an innocent little stroke turns her red, especially considering all the ways Clint’s had his hands and mouth on her before. He knows every inch of her body—let’s be real here.

“If you don’t get ready now, we risk being late,” she says “Before you know it, Evie will be up here to get ready, too, and it takes time to put on formal clothes, especially with a two year old underfoot.”

“For you, maybe,” Clint returns with a cocky grin, feeling a little more sure of himself now that he’s seen Darcy looking almost as off-kilter as he. Clint leans back into Buck’s shoulder. “Sounds like we got enough time to horse around in the shower if we get up right now.”

Clint can almost hear the drawl in Buck’s question when his arms wrap around Clint’s shoulders to draw him back to talk and he signs eagerly with a little leer in his animated eyebrows. “Twist my arm, why don’t ya?”

Then Clint’s suddenly airborne, skidding across the floor in his ratty Dog Cops boxers when Buck tips him out of bed and tries in vain to scoop him up to cart him off. There’s a scuffle—“no one _wins_ , you can’t win a game only you know the rules of in the first pl—uhnf—!”—and a brief wrestling match that ends in Clint cradled against Buck’s chest on the way to the shower in nothing but his ripped underwear like a romance novel damsel in distress. Which he must have bitched about out loud because—

“Mind your virtue!” Darcy signs and shouts at him over Buck’s shoulder with a delighted grin.

To which Clint replies with the universal sign for “you’re number one”—a flipped bird. But he’s the one getting the shower with Bucky, so he definitely wins this round.

He really hopes she’s thinking about that and turning flustered all over again while she gets dressed for dinner.

>>=========>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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